Isn’t it interesting (and sometimes depressing) to notice human nature and come to the realization that you’re not really all that different from everyone else? I fall into that ‘path of least resistance’ mode daily, no matter how hard I try to fancy myself as some kind of trailblazer.
As I walk up to Nordstrom (still my favorite dept. store…) I spy an entry door five doors away from my line of approach that has been propped open for some reason. And what do I do? I walk OUT OF MY WAY to sashay through the open door so that I don’t have to push the door in front of me.
I also take routes to places that avoid left turns even though the distance may be shorter, since turning right at red lights is so much less time consuming and easier on the brakes in general. And how about those speed bumps? Are you the one who will swerve your car intoan arc pattern to find spots where one or both of your wheels don’t have to traverse those nasty little bumps meant to slow you down? If so, I am among you. It makes me wonder which part of the equation I am truly falling into – the one who is taking the easier path or the more difficult one . . . I guess it’s all a matter or perception.
In my high school days, way back when teachers stood over us with whips to read Canterbury Tales, digest Chaucer, memorize poetry and even learn a bit of Middle English, one of my favorites was a Robert Frost poem called The Road Not Taken. Perhaps it was an illustration on the same page of the poem in my high school textbook or maybe it was the words themselves (novel concept) that continue to create the imagery that poem has lent me from when I first read it all those years ago. Okay, it was one of the shortest poems we had to learn and I liked that too. But those final stanzas, where Frost gazes in hindsight about the lessons and joys of taking the road that few would opt to venture down have always reminded me that (calculated) risk-taking is what makes you grow, no matter what age you happen to be.
It makes me think about how kids grow and develop. My daughter is a wildly successful entrepreneur, out-earning me hundreds of time over and still in her 20s. But she didn’t get there by being compliant. She got there by refusing to conform to dozens of stereotypes rammed down her throat by teachers, parents, and society in general while making me wonder if I possessed any valuable parenting skills at all. If I think back to her early childhood days, however, the risk-taking patterns that made her a successful businessperson were all there, right before my eyes. It wasn’t enough to climb up a few branches on a tree. She had to climb to the top, as her parents, weary of her shenanigans, stopped trying to ‘save’ her. We figured that if she could get herself up there, she could get herself down. Or the time her seventh grade science teacher told her in unequivocal terms that she could NOT grandstand and climb up on a chair to show off her science poster when it was time to make her class presentation. Instead, she climbed atop a lab table. And by the end of the school day, our home phone rang again with a teacher’s complaint. (This humor of this one was too much for me, but I tried to mask it as best I could…)
By the time she was eighteen, her father and I divorced – about the same time she couldn’t wait to be on her own. So she hightailed it up to the great northwest to experiment with life, spending nearly three years renting rooms, trying to hold down jobs and taking risks forwhich to this day I am sure I will never get full disclosure. She turned vegan, stopped caring about her looks and wore nothing but thrift store clothing. But she always stayed in touch. And whenever she told me things meant to shock me, I tried hard not to overreact while explaining to her that she just didn’t have to work all that hard to be different; that I would love her no matter what. And in a few years, I saw her metamorphose back into a beautiful young woman with a focus on her talents and passions that were so keen, it was like the scene out of Back to the Future, when the car of the future leaves a fire trail in its wake as it speeds to another place in time.
Sometimes I think God permits us to age to our fifties and beyond just to tease us. There is something about that number that conjures up all kinds of “okay, it’s time to get serious about things” feelings as we look forward. Learning lessons from my own daughter, it only strengthens my resolve to take that grassy path that I can’t see all the way down. Good old Robert Frost had it right. Take chances. Be audacious. Find your own path, as he says:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”
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