Trails that End
Last fall, during a particularly difficult time I went to a local state park to hike. Hiking is one of the ways I use to clear my head and try to make sense of things. It was a crisp autumn afternoon with a biting cold wind. Soon, however, my body warmed as I worked off my frustration and anxiety by following a narrow, windy trail (not the one pictured here). After I had been walking about a half hour, the trail took me down into a small depression between rolling hills and disappeared beneath a blanket of leaves. The trees were like tall umbrellas sprouting from the earth and creating a high canopy of branches against the gray sky. I was alone without a clue which direction to take.
After the initial confusion and disappointment, I realized I had walked my way into a metaphor of my life. I was at a place in my life where my career trail had disappeared and I didn’t know which way to go. However, standing beneath that umbrella of tree branches listening to nothing but the quiet shuffle of leaves the wind was casting about, I realized how beatiful this place was. Too often the point of my walking is to get to the end of the trail to say I did it. Too often I spent my life trying to get from one place to another to prove something to myself or others. What I should have been doing all along, however, was standing still, soaking in the beauty, listening to the wind, and not worrying about where the trail may lead some day.
That day I stood for a long time, not caring that the trail had ended. It gave me great relief when I realized it was okay that the particular career trail I had been on had ended as well. Rather than frantically looking for the path to lead me to something new, I chose to enjoy the place and to trust that in time the new path would show itself.
Today, I have ventured onto a new path, but I’m trying to enjoy the scenery along the way, to listen to the sounds around me, and to allow myself to live where I am rather than where I might someday be.
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