Detours to Now

How many times in life have you found yourself uttering the words, “how did I end up here” or a slight variation?  We may wonder at times why we are in or at a certain place in our lives.  When we think about it, whether we are asking these questions, we may be asking them out of exasperation, being perplexed, or gratitude.

When we look at where we are right now & realize that, although each one of us tends to have detours in life, we have some experiences we can feel so thankful for and these are times of profound joy.  At times when we look at our current destination & feel perplexed or frustrated with this point, we always have the choice to courageously change our next point in our journey.  Even if we think that we cannot leave a physical place or leave certain realities, we can change the way that we think of our situation.  Viktor Frankl taught us through his absolutely amazing book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” that we have choice in every situation, even within the indescribable environment detailed within his book.  We have the gift of choice over our attitudes & the grace to live our lives still with something bigger than anything we experience within our day to day lives Viktor Frankl tells us.  I will share with you that the first time that I read this amazing book, I was in second year university.  My mind was set on pursuing a career path in criminology.  I found it fascinating.  During one course, I really hit the guardrail so to speak on trying to get my mind around why some horrible things happen to some people out there within the framework of homicide.  Most of us have someone in our lives that either can point us in the right direction towards finding the “answer” to our questions or they know someone who can help out.  Often in life, I find that this person for me is my husband.  He is a thinker & steady as a rock & he is a pretty cool person to have around for others in either emergency situations or times of chaos.  He has that ability to gently lead & point in the direction of what makes sense without being obvious about it.  Suffice to say that when I was feeling this overwhelming sense of being disturbed about the horror that these people had gone through that we were learning about in the criminology course, I went to my “go to guy”, my then boyfriend, now husband.  Sure enough, my husband knew the exact person to talk to.  In turn this Dear Heart, Keith told my husband to encourage me to read, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”  I read it at top speed & then went back & read it again at a gentler speed.  After reading that book, I had an “aha moment”, yet I hesitate to call it a mere moment because it has impacted my whole life.  It became a way of thinking, feeling & knowing that has provided peace during difficult passages in my life.

When we think about those times when we have each gone on some type of road trip, we can likely bring to mind detours of travels.  Sometimes, we get lost for a time on the road to the physical destination & other times we have the route all mapped out & there is construction & we need to take a detour.  Sometimes, our GPS systems take us on bizarre little roundabout ways of getting to our destination.  There are times when we are grateful for the detour because we may see something breathtaking like a lake or a forest or a creature that we otherwise would have missed.  Or we may stop somewhere on the detour & meet someone incredible that we would have never met otherwise.  Other times, our detours may simply make us late & take us through undesirable parts of a geographic area.  Still, we can make the choice as to whether we will treat that as a situation of exasperation or something else.  Even an undesirable area can encourage us to remember to become grateful.  How?  We can choose to really appreciate beautiful surroundings even more.

Our lives tend to be made up of parts that we think of as wonderful times & other times that are challenging times.  When we have diabetes or another 365 challenge, we may find peace indeed within the gems of writing contained in “Man’s Search for Meaning.”  It may be the doorway to realizing that everything in life can be seen in a different way.  It does not mean that we won’t still go through the challenges in life, yet packing peace for the journey may just give us everything that would make a difference.

My heart’s hope is that whether you travel along nature’s trails or the deserts in life that you hold on to the knowledge that we each have will over our thoughts & attitudes.  We are more than our physical challenge or any other trial.  Our spirits are huge& filled with light & the challenges are shadows.  The shadows never overtake the sun.

Smiles, Saundie :)

May your week be filled with an "aha" moment that lasts a lifetime & next Monday's sharing is, "No, it's Not a Tug of War."  :)