The Value of Steps

Yesterday I wrote Six Steps to Salvation.  Today I want to write about the value of steps in general.  The modern world is prone to endless talk leading to no action.  The value of steps is that it breaks a goal down into small achievable sub-goals.  The bigger goal may be too big to make clear what action is needed.  But once this is broken down into sub-goals, the needed actions become clearer.  Sometimes a step is nothing more than a  realization, which means there isn't much action.  But even here, the step makes clear what talk is relevant and what talk is wasted.  An example of wasted talk is debate about conspiracy theories.  I can't see how determining whether or not a conspiracy theory is true would have any meaningful impact on any practical step that any of us would take.  But taking issues one at a time and trying to figure out if they matter generally is hard.  It is much easier to focus on your next step and then it will become very obvious what is relevant to you and what isn't.

Steps may or may not be ordered, but they must be small, clear, and concrete.  An excellent example of steps is the Five Pillars of Islam.  I would call these steps partially ordered because they are likely to be done in order and the first step must be first.  Let's compare these to my 5 steps of Biblic Judaism.  The steps of Islam are much better.  The second step of Biblic Judaism, "Follow the Bible as you understand it", is too vague.  And the first step, "Keep the Sabbath", is too hard.  The first step should always be the easiest.  I plan to fix the steps of Biblic Judaism soon.

So figure out your goal, then figure out the steps needed to get there, and then start working on this one step at a time.  In my case, my goal is to make Biblic Judaism work and I am working on the step of joining the Karaite synagogue.  But I was stuck because the synagogue is in Daly City, California, which is a very expensive area populated by repulsive Americans.  So I had a hard time justifying buying a house there.  I wanted a house near the synagogue so I could walk there because I didn't want to drive on the sabbath.  I probably should have posted my dilemma here and asked for suggestions, but luckily I figured out a solution.  I plan to buy a farm about an hour's drive from the synagogue and live there.  This will actually reduce my cost of living since I will eat food from the farm.  And it keeps me away from those repulsive Americans.  The solution to the sabbath problem is just to move the sabbath to another day of the week, maybe Sunday.  This means I can drive to the synagogue on Saturday.  I hope to do this by this summer, and then I can move on to the next step.

If you get stuck on your current step, you can post it here and ask for help.  The important thing is to keep moving, keep taking steps forward toward your goals.