Tomorrow’s a big day. And if you have work to do today and tomorrow, then thank you, and know that I support you. Go get ‘em.

Remember, though, that change doesn’t happen overnight. The events and influences that got us here didn’t arrive yesterday, and they won’t disappear tomorrow.

Things change incrementally. And there are two things we all have to keep in mind because of that.

First thing: don’t expect everything to be different all at once. No matter how momentous tomorrow may seem, remember that tomorrow is not change: tomorrow is an opportunity to move one step closer to change, or to move one step further away — which probably just means standing where you are, unmoving. Tomorrow may turn out that way: standing in place. No change. But whether that happens or not, it won’t make a big difference; not tomorrow. Tomorrow plus the next day plus the next day plus the next hundred days, the next thousand — those will make a big difference. That’s when we’ll see change. If we look back a thousand days ago, things appear very different from now: but only because we’ve made a thousand choices, taken a thousand steps. No one step is going to move us very far. Not even tomorrow.

So stay patient. Don’t give up hope, and don’t fool yourself into expecting more than a single step.

And the second thing is, if you want to make change, great change, momentous change — or if you want to ensure that there is no change in the things you want to conserve, if you want to fight off all those who want to push you off of the ground where you stand — then you must be persistent. Patient, as real change takes time; and persistent, because though it takes time, still you need to take that step, tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. If you want to take a thousand steps, then you need to fight every single day for a thousand days. You need to fight against the people who don’t want to take any steps, and the people who want to stop after a hundred steps, and the people who want to take a thousand or a hundred steps in a different direction.

You need to fight all of them. Every day. For every step. And the more often you win, the harder they will fight.

Persistence is the key. Never give up until you get where you want. And if you can’t keep fighting, find allies, and help them take one more step than you, and then another step after that. No step is all-important. But every step is important.

Let’s take the next step in the right direction. Please.