How to Eat a Buick

It may seem like a silly instruction. If you get too caught up in the details, such as the limits of human digestion, you might as well not read any further. But if you want to know how to overcome great obstacles when you feel overwhelmed and can’t possibly see a way through, ask yourself:

How do you eat a Buick?

Being a parent is hard. Parenting a child with unique needs, while rewarding in its own right, can also be overwhelming. Overwhelming in a way that your friends and other parents usually can’t understand.

What’s that?  You don’t have friends anymore?  That’s overwhelming too.

There are times when raising a child and supporting your family feels like a job too big. Or at least it feels too big for you. There is just too much to be done, not enough help, and hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel. And emotionally? If you even go there you might not come back.

It’s a lot. Like, you know- trying to eat a Buick.

When you stand in front of a Buick and consider eating it, it is a short consideration. Nope, can’t do it. Many of the biggest challenges in our lives are like this. When we consider the task before us in its entirety, it doesn’t seem possible.

But when we start to break it down into its parts, it slowly becomes a bit more feasible.

If we continue breaking the boulder down into smaller and smaller stones, eventually we are left with a pebble that we can manage. And if you can manage one small pebble, then you can manage another small pebble after that. And another after that. And eventually you will have overcome a small hill of pebbles that as you look back, once was a boulder to big.

Those who only see the boulder before them are rarely able to overcome it.

However others learn the answer to how you eat a Buick:

One, very small bite at a time.

Some of the most challenging bites- the bumper or steering wheel maybe- need to be ground up into the smallest pieces.

That is how you eat a Buick. That is how you overcome all of the biggest challenges in life. By picking up the smallest piece you can manage, the next piece before you, and moving it. One small piece at a time.

So parent, as you face the periods of child rearing where the task seems impossible but you know you must go one, remind yourself:

How to eat a Buick.

(Those who are not following the Buick metaphor can also reference running marathons, climbing mountains, or any other myriad of examples. But for me, it’s more fun to consider trying to eat a Buick.)