Tag: wisdom

The Search…

The problem with life is that it doesn’t come with a set of instructions on how to assemble a plan for it. You know a detailed step by step set of instructions on how to make sure what you build ends up looking the picture on the box. How great would it be to turn to the book of life and read “make sure you do step G and let it dry completely for 24 hours before moving onto step H.” How much pain and frustration could we avoid in our lives if we just had the directions to get from point a to point b in the most efficient path??? On the surface, this sounds pretty nice until you start to realize that would probably lead to the most boring, beige, milk toast, and pedestrian life you could ever imagine.

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s book note’s from the underground he espouses that if the world were perfect and nothing ever went wrong the first thing people would do is break something or desire for even more of a great thing just to see what would happen. Seems pretty counter-intuitive if you ask me but leaning back on past life experiences I tend to see the wisdom in his thoughts. If everything were perfect nothing spontaneous or truly miraculous would ever happen and although that predictable path may be efficient it sure would be boring.

I recently had the chance to drive route WY-22 between Jackson Wyoming and Victor Idaho. Its a mountain pass between the two towns on the southern edge of the Teton Range. Its by far the scariest road I’ve ever driven in my life and if you’ve had the privilege of driving that stretch of highway you’ll probably agree with me. With its 10% gradients, switchbacks, and sheer cliffs that but up against the edge of the roadway its a “10 and 2” drive the whole time. One minute your flooring it to get up the hill and a minute later it’s stomping on the breaks to make the 180-degree turn. The road is about 20 miles between the two towns but at an average speed somewhere in the 30’s it sure takes a long time to make that drive in comparison to traveling down a highway in pancake-flat “boring” Florida.

Once I safely got my wife, kids, and father in law over that mountain in our rented minivan my first thought was ” I want to do that again but in some kind of sports car so I can really push it” And there it is I made it through something perfectly fine and there I am wanting to throw caution and speed limits to the wind and charge up and down that mountain like there’s no tomorrow.

For my money, I’d rather my life highway be somewhere between Wy-22 and I-95 through north Florida. A good amount of ups and downs and some turns out of nowhere with plenty of miles of open road where you can get out and cruise for a while. In other words, a life that has some adventure and unexpected surprises smattered in with the day-to-day predictability of suburban life.

I’ve been absent from this writing thing for a while. I’m not really sure why it happened other then maybe the tank ran out of gas in what has been a long stretch of windy roads that has been highway 2020. Never the less on that little detour we had quite a few adventures and I’ve got some new fodder for our journey together on this adventure of life where we can make it up as we go along. If we were given directions we would have chucked them out the window a long time ago anyways.

When? how about right now.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second best time to plant a tree is right now.

How can today be the second best time? wouldn’t 19 years 364 days ago been a much better time then today to plant that tree. If you would have done it then you would already be sitting under that tree with a cold drink, reading a book and basking in the glorious shade it’s providing.

But alas we don’t have time machines and living in the past is for the dummies. We cant change what we have done or more importantly haven’t done in our pasts, and well that’s pretty darn important if you ask me. One of the two things I learned in college and actually use on the regular are, those who fail history are doomed to repeat it. In layman’s terms, learn from your mistakes dumb-dumb and don’t repeat them.

So with that being said NOW, RIGHT NOW is the second best time to go out and do something that’s going to pay off in the future. And quite possibly right now, in the middle of this epic dumpster fire of a global pandemic that we are all struggling through may be the best time in our life time to get out the shovel and start digging.

The Problem with trees.…

Is that you put one in the ground and you go out and water it every day for a couple of weeks and almost nothing happens. It hasn’t gotten much taller, there’s no fruit and the only thing getting some shade are the ants crawling around under neath it.

Things of great significance don’t change drastically over night they change little by little everyday, in fact most days its so insignificant that it doesn’t look like anything is happening at all. I don’t know about you but that’s pretty frustrating. I bought an orange tree because I was thirsty for juice now, not 5 years from now. It’s pretty easy to lose the drive to fertilize and nurture the tree when the grocery store down the street has a gallon of OJ cold and ready to go for just a couple of dollars.

I’m sure you’re thinking by now. Why are we still talking about trees? I don’t own a shovel or have the land to plant one in and for that matter who wants to get dirty.

Good because I have nothing else clever to say about them, so here’s the moral of the story…

Planting a tiny oak sapling and looking for shade is a lot like managing our health and well being, you are barging with the future. The decisions that we make today, tomorrow and so on will impact what happens to us in the future for better or worse. We can make wise choices and thrive and grow to our fullest potential or we can ignore the call and stunt our growth in the shadows of what could have been.

Call to action.

A lot of us are finding ourselves with extra time on our hands right now. Honestly I wish this wasn’t the case. This life right now is a nasty roller coaster and I’m ready to get off, but were stuck and might as well try and make the best of it.

Whats your big oak tree that you wish you would have planted 20 years ago? Is it better health, a shorter honey-do list,that book you’ve always wanted to write or maybe it’s just a simple ole shade tree.

Once you’ve decided what that tree looks like, stop imagining what it looks like and go grab the shovel and start planting. Set up some short term and mid range goals to measure your growth, this way you can see where you’ve been and where you are going.

Trust the process and one day you will find yourself under that tree drinking a glass of fresh squeezed O.J appreciating the work that you put in and being grateful that you started the project so long ago.