Navigating the road of life

I ran out this evening to do a few quick errands.  I  drove to where the mall and much of the shopping is...about a 20 - 25 minute drive.  As I pulled into the parking lot of  the store I noticed that it was flurrying...and that some of the cars had snow cover.  I am not a fan of driving in the snow, so I made a mental note to get in and get out.  I was looking at mens jeans...because I am done with the boys section for Alex....he is at the age where he keeps growing out of stuff.  I am sad enough to bid goodbye to my liitle boy and was especially sad when I saw the prices of the mens jeans.  I bumped into someone I hadn't seen in awhile and stopped to chat.  Suffice it to say, I took a little longer than anticipated.  As I walked out, I noticed that the ground was also now becoming covered.  One more quick stop and I was heading home.  As I got to this parking lot, the roadway was clear but the parking lot was covered in snow.  I ran in and got what I needed and ran back out.

I was becoming anxious about driving in the snow, questioning why I had decided to go out in the first place. Usually, my route home from this store is mostly back roads.  Given recent experiences on back roads in snow, I decided to stay on the main road for awhile before I veered off on the back roads.  This was not going to be a fun drive home.  Why, oh why hadn't I just stayed put?  As I drove on the main road, I noticed that just as suddenly as I had driven into the snow, I was driving out of it.  The roads were clear and I had an uneventful trip home...back roads and all.

I think that so often we look at where we are on the road of life and we imagine that this place, these conditions are what we are stuck with.  This is what we have been handed and we focus on navigating out way through it. We get prepared for that rough drive...we change our attitude as one of caution and stress, we become tense....but just because the road we are driving on now is rough...doesn't mean the road up ahead will be also.  I think we need to keep looking on the horizon for the place where the drive will be clearer and smoother and we can see the sun.  I think that if we do that...we will drive toward that place, instead of staying in the same place we are now.  It is believing in and looking for that change in the road...that will make this stretch of the road easier.

" I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it"

~ Jonathan Safran Foer

"It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that mksz you happy or unhappy.  It is what you think about it."

~ Dale Carnegie