Stefan & Holly

I don’t know why, but it seems I do a lot of meditative thought when I’m in the shower. Here’s what I was thinking about this morning.

I was thinking about the frontal lobe and how humans are the only species on the planet to have one. Other creatures have huge teeth and claws, or protective armor and can run, swim or fly fast. Us humans are slow and have soft squishy parts that are largely unprotected from would-be predators. In our evolution, instead of developing strong legs for running or scary teeth and claws, we went in a different direction. We developed our smarts. We have a brain on top of a brain.

This brain, the frontal lobe, is the only thing that sets us apart from the animals. The frontal lobe was developed to help us predict our predator’s moves so we could stay alive longer. It provided us with the ability to move forward and backwards in time. It provided us with self-awareness and a whole slew of emotions that animals are incapable of feeling. For example, we feel empathy for others (well, some of us do). We can envision ourselves driving a new car, or meeting our spouse at a different time and place.

We can actually conjure up emotions for events that have not even taken place yet! For example, I feel excited when I think how we are going to go to the fair this weekend. I am anticipating that we are going to have fun and enjoy ourselves and it makes me feel good now.

On the flipside, we can also feel negative emotions for events that have not taken place. We feel sad/angry/scared when we think about our pet dying from old age a few years down the road. We can feel anxiety when we think about the future of our job when the company announces there will be lay-offs. We don’t actually know that either of these things will come to fruition, but we worry about them as though they have already happened.

Take this same train of thought and think about advertising for a second. Advertising exploits our frontal lobe’s ability to project emotion onto future, uncertain events. Notice how everyone in commercials acts overly happy about the product or service they are representing. They act as though this one singular product/service is the answer to life and now they are completely content and satisfied. Other commercials exploit the negative emotions. Watch the actors in the health and life insurance commercials as they tell their sad tales of woe of what happened to Bob the co-worker who had no health insurance and suffered a stroke or Judy the widower whose husband failed to buy life insurance. Do you feel scared after seeing those commercials? It’s because you empathized with what they were going through and then you predicted how you would feel if that happened to you. But wait – now you know you can avoid that scenario by purchasing this particular product or service.

Now imagine if we had no frontal lobe at all. Nobody would be invading other countries because they wouldn’t have the ability to imagine what they would gain from doing so. We would not have many of the inventions that we have. In fact, we probably would not even have a basic spear from caveman days. We would not have language and we would just take what we wanted from others without thinking how we’d feel if someone did that to us. We would not feel the need for revenge. We would not know guilt or shame. We’d probably feel content more often, though, because we would not have the capability of worrying about our future.

All those ruthless, heartless dictators out there – you know the ones – they are owned by their frontal lobe. They have a false taste of power and they foolishly think they will feel happy and satisfied once they own everything around them. Yet their frontal lobe has done them a huge disservice. Their own bloodlust keeps them from enjoying the day-to-day pleasures and their focus on one singular future event prevents them from realizing that they are human just like everyone else. I can’t wait for the day when one of these guys keels over from an aneurysm or has a fatal stroke. It should serve as a wake-up call to the rest of them out there – hey guess what guys – life is still out of your control and it will still kick you in the balls. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that can stop death. So why the hate?

Our frontal lobe, if not balanced with our other brain, can easily become the bane of our existence. It is such a new and complicated organ; there are still many bugs in the system and it has not become perfect yet. Not by a long shot. Nor are we anywhere near close to harnessing the raw power of the frontal lobe. It is like a wild beast on a leash. We must learn to tame it or live alongside it so it does not own us.

I’m sure this is all stuff anyone learns in Psychology 101, but it does make for good meditation. It helps me to remember what is really important in life.

The American Family Fitness gym in Colonial Heights has a mascot, but they don’t tell their members about it.

Last week as we were pulling into the gym parking lot at 5am, we saw a hunched shadow on the ground. As we got closer, I figured it was an opossum. I’ve seen them before and they walk all hunched over with rounded back. I don’t care for them much. But to our great surprise, it was not an opossum. Nor was it a raccoon or skunk.

It was (drum roll please)…a BEAVER!

As we watched in fascination, this beaver slowly waddled his way across the parking lot, then he lifted himself onto the sidewalk and walked the length of the gym and headed towards the garbage dumpster in the back. At first I was afraid our furry friend might be rabid, as I have never in my life seen a beaver out of water, much less crossing the parking lot of a gym and paying no mind to the cars and people around him.

Then yesterday we saw him again as we were leaving the gym (by now it was daylight). Seems our beaver friend could use a gym membership himself. He’s quite fat, with a pot-belly and he doesn’t seem interested in moving fast at all. He spends his time meandering between the two drainage ponds and the garbage dump. He is not a graceful creature, but he surely is interesting. Imagine how hard it must be to walk in swimming flippers everywhere you go. LOL

It is said that women do not come into their own until they reach their thirties. I would have to agree with that. For the better part of this year, I have been discovering deep-seated things about myself that I never knew existed. I didn’t intentionally set out to do so, but a series of events unfolded early this year and set me down this path of self-exploration.

What happened was so simple and it was over in an instant, yet that blinding flash of truth seared down into the very core of who I am. It was like a great big heavy gear suddenly and for no reason shifted into place when it had never been in place since its existence.

Ironically enough, that’s when the real trouble for me began. I knew beyond any shiver of a shadow that I had blamed the wrong person my whole life. That knowledge would take a while to wind its way through my inner workings. A belief system of a lifetime had to be undone and that takes time.

I have been going down some dark paths ever since it happened. I have retreated. I didn’t mean to. I resurrected some old patterns without my full knowledge – patterns I thought I’d long since banished. But I guess I really only shoved them to the back of the closet for safe-keeping.

I knew something was wrong. I could tell by the way I felt, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the problem was or why I was acting the way I was or how to stop it. I’ve been faltering ever since I found out the truth. At first I thought I was faltering because I was watching my entire foundation crumble around me and I didn’t know what to do or how to go about re-building. I was mistaken. I hadn’t even reached the root yet.

I reached the root Friday night. After years of mucking around, we finally got to the real issue. We cornered it and stabbed it – fatally. I have been so tired for years and years of carrying around these thoughts and beliefs that were so entrenched in me. I knew they were wrong and untruthful, but I couldn’t get rid of them no matter what or how hard I tried.

Now I am free. My anxiety level has diminished. It had been growing significantly over the years. I have a deep inner peace. I feel relaxed and unrushed. I feel confident in myself. I feel solid for once. I feel neither guilt nor shame. All those burdens are lifted.

All those years I blamed myself. I knew consciously it made no sense, but I couldn’t convince the me that existed behind the glass – the subconscious mind. I don’t blame myself anymore. I know where it counts that it was never my fault. It could never be my fault and it’s not my fault even now. I am no longer focusing any energy to this end.

Now I see clearly how I fought, I begged, I cried, I demanded, I pleaded, I sacrificed, I made supplication to something that never was, nor ever will be. Now I am free to let that person battle their own demons, for it was their own demons they were fighting, never me. It had nothing to do with me at all, but my child-brain could not know that. This person is still paying for the sins of their father. Those sins kept this person from being what I needed when I needed it. I now understand that old Bible verse. I have been paying for the sins of the father and I will do so no more.

I just read this article today and am happy to say I can relate to the couple! In case you don’t want to read it, here’s a re-cap:

A couple with credit card debt has learned to not use their credit cards and is paying down their debt. When faced with using their cards, they feel funny about it.

Stefan and I were just talking about stuff like this the other day. He asked me, “Over the past 365 days, do you think we’ve eaten more healthy meals than non-healthy meals?” I pondered this for about half a second before answering with a resounding “yes!”

In addition, we’ve worked out more than we have not worked out, and we’ve paid cash for more stuff than we have used credit cards. In fact, I can count on one hand how many times we’ve used a card over the past year. Even better, I can tell you what we purchased each time.

There was a time neither one of us could say any of these things. I guess somewhere along the way, we got sick of the way we were living. And I think that because now we feel funny when we don’t work out, we feel funny when we eat crap, and we feel funny when we think about using the plastic card, that means we have turned a corner on making some major lifestyle changes.

It took a monumental effort and we aren’t done yet. We aren’t perfect at any of them, but we’re getting much, much better. It took plenty of tries and fails, too. It was not easy and at times, it was not pretty. But I truly believe in my heart that we cannot go back living the way we had been. When I say “cannot,” what I mean by that is that our conscious will not allow us.

Sometimes the process seems agonizingly slow. Why aren’t we there yet? I often wonder. But I must remind myself that we are trying to change three major facets of our life and our energy and efforts are spread out equally among them. If we focused all our attention onto one, I’m sure we would have mastered it by now. But what good would it do if the other areas suffered from neglect in the process? Is it pointless to try and turn only half the ship around?

I would say that our ship has tipped over the halfway turned around mark, meaning it would take more effort to revert than to continue turning around. I am hoping that from here, we will begin to pick up speed. Hopefully the majority of the heavy lifting is behind us. That’s what I’m hoping for.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. I’m trying, I really am. But for some reason, every time I try to write something, it doesn’t sound right, or it seems too personal, and I just can’t get myself to post it.

Just as an FYI, I did start a new contract. This is my third week at the new place. The pay is substantially less, but it’s much closer to home. I’m much happier now, too. I would like to stay in this general area if I could next contract. I don’t think I ever want to have an hour commute again. I didn’t realize the toll it was taking on my day-to-day mood. Truth is, that extra money didn’t buy me any more happiness. Maybe I’m learning something in this arena. I don’t feel in need or in want on this lesser salary.

Okay, on to the deep thoughts. I think I’ve been silent for so long because I’m at a place in my life where I am being forced to redefine my boundaries with some folks. I don’t necessarily want to, but their behavior is leaving me little option but to distance myself from them. I suppose it was a long time coming, but I had to get there on my own timetable.

What do you do when you’re trying to make things right and despite all your efforts, you realize that the other person is a) completely oblivious and non-reciprocal and/or b) intentionally doing things to sabotage your efforts? What do you do when the other person is clearly not interested in bettering the relationship and not willing to work on it or put in the effort you are? If these two people were married, then divorce would be imminent. If these two people were friends, it would be time to terminate the friendship. If these two people were related….what then? What if you felt like were the person to end up on their deathbed, they would regret some of the things they did/said to push the other person away? Like you can see this train from miles away but they cannot and you wish they would wake up and realize that their actions are likely to lead to unpleasant last moments?

Is it enough to say you’ve done your due diligence and let things wither on the vine? How do you square that up in your head? How do you make your peace with it?

To me, to die with regrets is a most horrible sin. To die wishing you’d made different choices in life – who you cared about, how you showed your care, how you spent your time, who you spent it with – is an unimaginable burden. But unfortunately, I get the feeling that most people do not spend much time contemplating their own death. Hell, I know people in their fifties who are just beginning to think about retirement planning! (By the way, I think about retirement planning almost every day, so to not think of it seems absurd to me. Yes, I know this makes me weird.) Every now and then (and not as often as I should), I ask myself, “If I died today, could I say I lived a happy and fulfilling life? Would I regret anything?” And that’s when I think of all those fears that I’m still allowing to conquer me and realize maybe they aren’t so scary after all. I mean, nothing is scary when being compared to your own immortality! Actually, I should probably ask myself that question when I am facing my fears. Maybe it would help shrink them back into proportion.

Okay, so that’s the kind of heaviness that is running like a ticker tape in the background of my mind.

Now on to the vent.

I went out to lunch today with three other co-workers. I am the newbie on the team and I am also the youngest of the bunch. When the waiter came by to collect our plates, he asked how the tab should be split. One co-worker said to split them all onto different tabs. That’s when another co-worker spoke up and said to put three of the meals on one tab, and mine on my own. Nobody said a peep except for me, because I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. She gave me some BS reason for paying for their lunches and not mine. I cannot recall the last time I was ever excluded so openly. And it’s not that I expected her to pay for my lunch. I fully expected to pay my own way. But to be singled out like that in front of everyone, that was just humiliating and embarrassing. Had it not been for the fact that we’d all carpooled together and it was too far to walk back to work, I would have walked out on the spot.

I don’t get angry often, but when I do, it’s almost always because I feel disrespected. I’ve always lived by the rule “treat others as you would have them treat you” and that is my standard level of respect I show to everyone I meet. If I don’t receive that minimal standard of respect in return, the rule goes right out the window.

I have four days left of work and then I might be spending Friday in the unemployment line.

Even though I had a months’ notice that my contract was not being renewed, it has proven to not be enough time to find another job. I’ve applied to 25 jobs. I’ve had 1 interview. 24 places have not responded at all. Most of them were crap. Welcome to the world of online job hunting.

I’m relatively calm this morning. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve emotionally detached from my current place of work, or if I’ve accepted my fate. I’m probably somewhat in denial. But I think (I hope) I’m past the anger phase. It still stung a little when a coworker asked for my help this morning filling out a form that used to be my duty to do. I asked who revised the procedure. The person who interviewed me did. So my responsibilities have been transferred already.

I’m thinking if I don’t get the position I’ve interviewed for, then I’ll go register with some temp agencies. Something is better than nothing, and if I can find something to tide me over until my sector picks up again in late summer, then perhaps we can squeak through this relatively unscathed. We can still sell our stock portfolio if needed (although it’s taken a beating, the stock market has proved to be a valuable place to stash savings). And I don’t need to make a whole lot to fill the gap. More is nice, but less will do in a pinch.

It was difficult at first to find the good in this situation, but I think we are finding it. It has definitely forced me to slow down and simplify. I didn’t realize I was going so fast, but I was, and it wasn’t good for me. Slow and steady wins the race. I am appreciating all the things we do have instead of lamenting over what we don’t have. What we have isn’t really that bad. In fact, it’s kind of nice. There will be plenty of time to get to where we are going.

I am learning patience. One thing that is important is for me to stop fretting needlessly. I’m trying very hard to put the situation out of my mind once I get home from work and on the weekends. Nobody’s going to call me for a job outside of work hours, so I should relax during those times and enjoy that time. It will keep me refreshed and prevent me from burning out.

Speaking of which, we had a wonderful weekend, full of excitement and energy. It was really nice to take a break from reality. We had a chance to reconnect and rediscover some things we said we’d always do, but over the course of day-to-day living, we have not done in a long while.

When you have no idea what the future holds, what tomorrow may bring, when your world is upended so, it has a way of bringing you back down to the basics. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I do know that spending time with my husband is free and it brings me happiness and joy. If we have nothing else, we still have each other and that brings me comfort, knowing that no matter what happens, I am not alone. If anything, this experience is bringing us closer together, helping us hone in on what is really important in our lives: food to eat, a roof over our head, and each other. Anything else is icing.

It was so good to see our brand new little puppy, Izzabella, pinwheeling this morning. We call in pinwheeling because she does this thing where when she gets excited she stands on her back feet and waves her front paws in the air – often going in different directions.

I don’t know why I’ve been hesitant to talk about our new puppy. Perhaps it’s because she seems too good to be true. It was Friday morning when we got her – from a mall pet store up in Massachusetts. We’d gone there to go to Men’s Warehouse to get Stefan a suit for his grandmother’s funeral. That was a very tough day. We’d walked past Men’s Warehouse, not quite ready to go in, because going in and asking to be fitted for a suit to wear to a funeral makes the inevitable all that more unavoidable. Then Stefan spotted the pet store. It was an old-fashioned store (I say it’s old-fashioned because they don’t exist in Virginia), and it had puppies in the window.

We went it to watch the puppies play and give ourselves a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy week. We needed a breath of life.

We walked out with our latest addition to our furry family.

Call it puppy love.

It was love at first sight. At first we didn’t see her. That was because she was not in her pen. She was in a holding area where a potential family was spending time with her to see if she would fit in with them. But then she had been returned to her pen as we were making one last go-round in the store.

Have you ever tripped and fell in love, head over heels so unexpectedly?

She looked like a pint-sized pitbull with her square jaw, rounded head and ears with floppy tips. She was leggy, too, with a brown and black brindle coat. She latched onto Stefan’s heart when she latched onto his finger with her tiny needle puppy teeth. She has yet to let go! She latched onto my heart, too.

We found out that she is a Fox/Rat Terrier mix, and at her current weight of 3 pounds, will probably not get much larger than 5 pounds. We didn’t want a dog that small. And we didn’t want a female.

Oh, well. Sometimes love doesn’t care about what you want!

Izzabella has turned out to be such a good puppy. If we’d gotten her before any of the others, we would have been disappointed with how badly behaved puppies really are! She is a quick learner and very sensitive. She loves to cuddle, but then can rough-house with the boys. And she also came with the quintessential kennel cough that just about every puppy gets. Seems puppies and kennel cough is the equivalent to children and chicken pox.

Stefan took her in for a wellness check and to confirm that it was kennel cough. It was. We got some medication to give her. Yet as the week passed, her cough did not seem to be subsiding. On Saturday it began to sound different and she hacked up a couple of loogies – something we hadn’t experienced with our other dogs. Around midnight, she seemed very lethargic and had no interest in playing, eating or drinking. She kept her tail tucked and kept trying to climb onto the sofa for a nap, even when we waved her favorite toy in front of her. Lethargy in puppies is always a scary thing. She was having trouble breathing, too. With her being so tiny, we were scared. She hadn’t been well enough to get her distemper shot, and she looked like she was going downhill fast. Off we rushed to the emergency vet.

Five hours later we returned home, our worst fears abated, $350 poorer, and with a better understanding of what vets can and cannot do. They prescribed some more powerful antibiotics and sent us home to watch over her, with the warning that if she didn’t improve within a few hours, to bring her back in.

The doctor scared the crap out of us. She took pictures of Izzabella’s lungs and showed us what she said was gas in her esophagus – sometimes caused by eating food too quickly, or water going down the wrong pipe. She offered to keep Izzabella overnight for observation and monitor her oxygen, make sure she wasn’t having problems eating or drinking. I talked to the nurse in private when the doctor wasn’t around to ask about the seriousness of gas in the esophagus and whether it was painful or not. Turns out gas in the esophagus is no big deal. It can be a little painful, just like regular gas can be, but not life-threatening. Not the way the doctor had made it sound.

We concluded on our own after the doctor’s vagueness, that Izzabella’s unexplained lethargy was caused by her playing around too much while she was sick. Just like a child who ignores the cold and continues to play until their body is completely exhausted. We spent Sunday with her mostly sleeping and keeping her quiet and calm so she can heal. Our biggest concern was to keep her upper respiratory infection from worsening and turning into pneumonia. So we decided a day of rest was in order. She slept most of yesterday, and like most people, got very tired around 5pm. We were a little concerned, but figured that’s usually when illnesses make you feel the worst, and it was probably the same for her. Since she had no fever and her white blood count was normal, there was little else the doctor could have done anyway. We’ve come to the conclusion that vets are good mainly for the obvious things – broken bones, bites, that sort of thing. But when it comes to internal stuff, like infections and viruses, they suck. They can’t do any more than we can do, which is to observe behavior and watch to see if it gets better or worse.

This morning she was back to her old self – sniffing, playing, and pinwheeling. It was such a good sight! I can’t even explain how much this little puppy means to us even though we’ve only had her for a week. She is the symbol of life after death and as tremendously scary as it is to try to reach out and love after loss, we are finding we don’t have any other option but to love when it comes to Izzabella.

It’s only taken almost a year, but I think I am almost free from being a slave to the flesh.

I had my first real taste of freedom this morning.

First, it’s been a little over a week since we’ve been able to work out. Last week we were dealing with the death of Stefan’s grandmother, so we had to take an emergency out-of-town trip to Massachusetts. We left Monday evening and returned on Saturday. Even with Sunday and Monday off, neither of us had recovered mentally or emotionally yet, and that in turn made us more physically tired than normal.

Stefan was the first to return to his normal work-out routine (or as normal as it can be while his knee heals, but he’s doing amazing and is changing every day before my very eyes). He got back to it on Tuesday. I followed suit yesterday morning.

I did well yesterday, surprising even myself by completing a full 20 minute HIIT session. I figured I would still be wiped and had planned on only doing 10 minutes. But by the completion of the second cycle, I was feeling pumped, so I kept going.

This morning, however, I was feeling weak. I wasn’t feeling my upper-body weight session. I got up to my eights on shoulders and then decided that was enough. My arms felt close to crapping out. And besides, Stefan was crapping out early on his workouts, seeing as to how he was still dealing with the physical drain of the previous week. I figured it’d be okay if I quit early.

I dawdled for a few minutes, then went to turn on the water in the shower. That’s when I started to feel really bad for quitting prematurely. At first I tried to convince myself it was okay if I quit early. I’d just tell Stefan I’d crapped out. It would be easy enough to do, and understandable. But suddenly that did not feel right at all. I knew I was lying to myself and to him. I could have continued. I should have continued.

I pulled the shower curtain back closed, strapped on my gloves and picked up the weights. I finished out my sixes on the shoulders, then the twelves and the last rep of twelves. Then I went on to biceps and pushed through until my right arm did actually physically crap out on my sixes.

Now I had earned the right to quit.

It feels like to me that a new something or another is beginning to grow in my brain. I (and Stefan) do not feel like the day is complete unless I’ve (we’ve) worked out. It’s become one of those things, like brushing one’s teeth before going to bed. Working out has actually become a habit! And now it appears that the lazy days are gone, and from here I will not accept excuses for not giving my workout 100%.

We used to dream of the day when working out would become a habit. We used to talk about it. When will it happen? Will it ever happen? Will we ever enjoy working out?

Now that day is here!

It happened first for Stefan, around the beginning of the year. He did a stint of working out 6 days a week and on Valentine’s Day, I got to see the results. He also paid careful attention to what he ate. Now he’s hooked. Now we’re trying to figure out if there is a cardio machine that will be gentle on his bad knee, and how we can fit a full-sized home gym into one of the bedrooms. He’s quickly outgrowing the Bowflex Select-Tech dumbbell set. He’s also experimenting with protein powders to help him bulk up quicker.

I can’t believe that day is here!

So don’t give up - you can do it, too! Neither of us possess any kind of special powers or extra-strength willpower. If you want it, you can have the body of your dreams. There will come a day when you will no longer be a flesh slave. But you must work hard at it.

After many failed attempts at goal-setting, I believe we have discovered the magic number which will keep us adequately motivated to keep moving forward.

That number is two years into the future.

We’ve tried looking further ahead, such as ten or twenty years down the line, and found it’s too far away. It’s like trying to kick a field goal from the 80-yard line. Chances are, you’re not going to make it. There are too many variables at play. The wind, the wobbly feeling in your ankle. It’s too demanding to stay focused on something that is so far away. Any little thing that looks like a setback makes you think it will throw you wildly off course. Plus, daily life demands so much attention.

We’ve tried looking only a few months ahead, but that has its pitfalls, too. Strangely enough, it’s difficult to also focus on something too near. How many times have you made a New Year’s Resolution to start or kick a habit within 6 months’ time? Procrastination sets in. It’s really weird, but you tend to put it off until tomorrow. After all, how long can it really take?

Now we’ve been working with a goal of two years in mind since the start of this year. And it seems to be working.

Two years from now, if we continue doing what we’re doing, we will:

• Own everything free and clear (minus the house and maybe the truck)
• Have a substantial down payment saved up for our “dream” house
• Be in the best shape of our lives
• Have completed all the training required to each obtain a Hulk
• Have at least two book manuscripts ready to pitch

So far, there has not a day that’s gone by that I do not think of that two-year mark in some form or fashion. Other things are happening then, too, and I want to make sure we are prepared for them. For example, it is very likely that my contract will either end at that time (as this phase of the project closes), or the team will relocate to an office an hour and a half further away than what I already drive. This means finding another job, hopefully one closer to home. I know that two years from now, I can probably look forward to a shorter commute and shorter work day and that excites me.

Every day, I think of that two year mark and it motivates me. Everyday that we get out of bed and go to work, we are that much closer to paying off everything and saving up for that dream house. Everyday that we work out and eat healthy meals is a day closer to being in the best shape of our lives two years from now. Everyday that we train is one day closer to owning a hulk. And everyday that we write is a page closer to having a finished manuscript.

If we did some or none of these things, two years will pass by regardless. We may or may not have accomplished our goals. But if we do nothing, we are guaranteeing that in two years from now, nothing will have changed for us. Two years is far away enough to look forward to, yet close enough to want to do something about. Heck, we’ve been in our house for two years already and I don’t want to stay too much longer past 4 years!

So what about you? What have you wanted to accomplish but haven’t? What do you want to do that you just keep putting off another day?

Every day that goes by that you do not work towards your goals is a day wasted. And now that we’ve figured out the magic number, doing these small tasks every day has become a way of life. They are just things that we do, and we won’t stop doing them two years from now, either. It’s enough time to change what began as a good habit into a lifestyle. And that feels really, really good.

I came across a saying a few days ago and it has really struck a chord with me. The saying is:

“When you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will do.”

I don’t know who said it or when. It was just one of those little things I came across while surfing the Internet. I’ve thought a lot about the saying and what it means over the last few days. While at first it sounds like a rather innocent, meaningless observation, it most definitely is not, and what it doesn’t say is equally important as what it does say.

I suppose there are two ways to interpret this saying. The first one sounds like a person describing a care-free Sunday drive. There is much fun and beauty in jumping into your car and traveling down some country roads you’ve never been before. You don’t have a destination in mind, because that would ruin the spontaneity of the act. With no destination in mind, you can pick any road you choose and more than likely, you will enjoy the ride. The act of not having a destination almost is a destination in and of itself.

The second way to interpret this saying is to assume the author meant the journey of life and not a casual Sunday drive. When interpreted this way, the saying takes on a much deeper meaning. On one hand, it could imply that one should keep moving forward in life, taking opportunities that come, versus being too afraid to do anything different at all. On the other hand, one could say that this is a sarcastic little quip about what happens to someone who has no overall plan or direction in their lives. Things have a tendency to “just happen” to a person, and the saying implies that a lack of personal responsibility is a negative thing.

By saying “When you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will do,” then the opposite can be equally implied.

If the saying was inversed, it would say:

“When you DO know where you’re going, then any road will NOT do.” (Capitalization for emphasis only)

This gives the reader a clue into how the saying should be interpreted, and I believe that the saying is basically warning against what could and most likely will happen to a person when their life lacks direction. If your life lacks direction, then your evaluation of circumstances, possibilities and opportunities becomes greatly hampered. You may choose roads that look appealing because at least you are moving, right? But sometimes you choose roads without looking far enough ahead into the future, and that can cause much heartache and grief. If you ever wonder why you are where you are, perhaps you did not have a direction to begin with. If you have no direction, how can you tell if you are in a good place or not?

However, if you do know where you are going, if you have a plan or a general direction, you can be more discretionary towards all the things that appear to be great opportunities on the surface. You will not be tempted by all those little side-paths, and you will have the ability to evaluate if the side-path really is just that – a dead end – or if it is a shortcut that if taken, will help you advance more quickly towards your destination. Direction allows you to actually be more spontaneous than not having any direction at all. You can choose which twist and turn or bump is worth taking and you can enjoy it more fully, knowing that you are still on the right path, headed in the right direction.