There’s a splendid Frog and Toad story of turning a corner. A young Frog hears his parents remark that spring is “just around the corner.” Intrigued, Frog starts looking around every corner, wondering where spring is. After some confusion, he winds up back at his own house, walks around the corner of the house and discovers spring in the shoots coming up in the garden.
The expression “turning a corner” captures that almost imperceptible accumulation of changes that results in a dramatic difference. Slowly, the days stretch longer, the earth warms, the tree that was bare slowly develops buds which seemingly all of a sudden burst into the full canopy of foliage we did not even realize had been missing. When precisely is the moment when we turn the corner on winter and are fully immersed in the abundant and verdant experience of spring?
Of course, it never happens all at once; there are outliers. For people in colder climes, there are the premature seeming snowdrops that blossom as the wintry weather continues to torment, signaling a change on the horizon but not yet realized.
It’s not just the weather that turns a corner. When renovating, that absurd and comically ill-considered exercise of trying to claw back an old house from the ravages of time, a ghastly house can suddenly acquire the order and charm of a full-fledged home. “It’s really starting to come together!” the neighbors remark in several separate conversations, suggesting that something is noticeably improved, some combination of additions and subtractions, growth and management has led to a noticeably improved façade.
Likewise, in interior rooms in the process of renovation over time there is a turning the corner, a turning of all the corners, perhaps. We are not talking about an HGTV tear-out and remodel in the space of a neat 47-minute episode. We are talking about the real-life process of people over time sanding down, painting, hiring out, fixing up, organizing and cleaning a room to look better and allow greater functionality than before. In this slow process, there are big pieces, like putting in new countertops and replacing a horrid old faucet. But these changes may not serve to update the room but instead highlight how tired, worn, and dated the rest of the room still is.
The real secret might be a coat of paint. Not the big dramatic one, but a subtle update of color on the wall that hides a host of blemishes. Lavishing the door frame and baseboards with a hint of “ultra pure white” (the best there is for baseboards) imbues a sense of cleanliness, thoughtfulness, and completeness to the room that is more powerful than you might realize. Of course, the bigger projects of having cabinets repainted and flooring put in were necessary, but somehow it’s an artful succulent in a vase and a splash of paint on the wall that brings the room to something approaching completion, causing a friend to remark, “I don’t know what it is, but something cute is happening here.” Indeed.
In pursuing improved health through nutrition and exercise, the same can be true. Allegedly, there is a French expression that the body doesn’t like drama. I say allegedly, because this was heard from some French ex-pat and I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity, but it’s a helpful thought. When we suddenly go from snorting Little Debbie’s to ingesting nothing but raw kale, there’s a lot of drama that occurs. The lasting, meaningful change seems to happen with a short ten-minute workout every day, a sustained increase in vegetable intake amid the usual happenings of life. These are the changes that will make a difference.
But when? How do you know what you are doing will actually make a difference?
They like to say that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Albert Einstein appears not to have uttered this sage observation, though it is often attributed to him. Rather the ordinary addicts of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous and their accomplices are whom we can thank for the repetition of this wise observation. If we continually begin crash diets and huge overhauls, only to come crashing down to reality with backsliding and a crushing sense of inadequacy, we should know what to expect.
These are common errors that can be crosschecked with many people who have remarkably similar experiences. To continue the radical overhaul is insanity when the predictable result will be sadness and defeat.
On the other hand, there are habits so miniscule that we are tempted to think they don’t make any difference at all, yet committing ourselves to their predictable rhythms eventually get us around the corner into higher plane of existence, a new realm of being, an emergence from the cave. This is when it pays to pay attention to happy and healthy people.
There is no blueprint for a good life, and each person’s circumstances is different, but there are many habits that translate to good living in a wide variety of contexts. Many of us will walk a fine line between insanity and sound decision-making many a day, but the trajectory of our lives can be tethered to predictable signposts. We do not know if our fumbling efforts will ever yield results, but there is a great mercy in this life that sometimes seemingly pointless efforts, if they are good and worthy, will one day take us around a corner. Sometimes, that has made all the difference.
