You can see the other path over there, the one you normally take, but today you’ve decided to take the path less travelled. It’s a little narrower, a little rockier, but it doesn’t look THAT intimidating. It’s probably a shortcut anyway, getting you down the mountain faster. Plus, you’re curious (for once). Commence adventure.
You can see the other path, the familiar path, as you wind your way down this new path, this trail where you cannot see beyond two steps in front of you. This lane that you have no idea where it leads, but you followed it anyway.
When that familiar path starts to disappear from view, you panic a little. You still have no idea where this path is leading, and the further you get down it, the more curious and frightened you become. Will this path lead to where you want to go? Will it dead-end? Will it ever end? These are the questions that have yet to be answered as you continue, one foot in front of the other, down the path of the unknown.
The trail gets smaller, windier, steeper. You start to freak a bit. You cannot see that familiar path anywhere, and you can barely see behind you. The briar patches get closer. The recognizable shortness of breath returns. You stop, but all you can do is go forward.
You come to a place where gravity fights you, pushing you down a rather steep, rocky road. You grab hold of a set of pipes next to you to assist you down. They scorch your hand. You yell out profanities but continue down anyway. You grab a branch to steady yourself. That seems to work, so you grab another branch, and then another, until you start to get into a groove and feel on top of the world. “I got this, this is easy” you gloat to yourself.
And then it happens.
You skid on the rocks and fall into the briar bushes.
The universe laughs.
You shake your head in defeat, laugh. The blood on your hands has already started to heal.
You arise, dust off your pants, and put one foot in front of the other, this time, watching your step instead of feeding your ego.
The path smooths out for a beat. But now you know, always expect the unexpected.
Sure enough, just around a shaded corner, the path plummets. You stop and turn around. You can’t go back up the hill, that would be even worse than coming down. You can only go forward. So you sit on the ground, test the rocky soil once again, and step with faith into the unknown.
You struggle to get to the bottom. You keep skidding. At one point, you feel like you should just sit and slide down. But with both feet on the ground and hands at either side of the mountain, you slowly navigate. And you know what? Before you know it, you’re at level ground. There’s actually a trail marker at the bottom, showing the hikers how to start their journey. So what if you just came down the trail instead of starting from the beginning? When did you ever do anything the easy way?
As you look up from whence you came, you can’t help but smile. You may have gone out of your way on a new trail that will inevitably get you back to where you were going, but the lessons learned on that new trail were priceless.
So the next time you see a fork in the road, take it. You never know what lies beyond the trees.
