As the cheering continued, Rhyme leaned forward and touched Milo gently on the arm. “They’re shouting for you,” she said with a smile. “But I could never have done it,” he objected, “without everyone else’s help.” “That may be true,” said Reason gravely, “but you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.”

~ The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

To any who read these thoughts but who have not yet read Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, please go do so. Now. It is not just for children. I promise. I think I first read Tollbooth when I was in fifth grade. While several scenes stayed in my mind through the years, I never read it again until I borrowed it from the friend of one of my nieces, and the timing could not have been any better. It is fiction filled with truths. In the passage quoted above, our young hero Milo is being celebrated for his lead in rescuing the princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air – a quest requiring an impossible journey through the Mountains of Ignorance. Wisely, the princesses brothers, King Azaz and the Mathemagician did not disclose to Milo the impossibility of his mission until it was completed (a passage containing another truth I shall write about).

While all of this happens in the most fantastic of fantasies, this is true: “…what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.” I have several tasks ahead of me right now that I often feel I cannot do. How often do we give the excuse I can’t when what we really should say  is either I won’t or I don’t want to? Sometimes we say I can’t when what we mean is I’m afraid. We see the barriers and the challenges and feel overwhelmed. Even difficult journeys are taken on one step at a time, and barriers only need to be faced one at a time. If we can be like Milo, open to friendship and assistance from unexpected people (or dogs or bugs) in our lives, we will not be alone in facing them.