Category: Life

We just got back from visiting some old friends in a very remote part of Colorado. Our friends are not “older adults,” as we say in the senior living business, but old friends in the sense of our having known each other for many many years.

I first met them right after I graduated from college. And we have kept in touch since then.

Depth comes with time. We last met up four years ago, but we got right into discussions about heavy stuff that we can’t talk about with most people. We knew that the other person wouldn’t think less of the one sharing, even if we disagreed. (And we agreed on most stuff.)

I’m very thankful for friendships that last.

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Photo: Ben scans the horizon from their rooftop. There were no cars and only about three houses visible, even though we could see more than 60 miles.

We all need to push ourselves to extremes. It’s healthy and necessary to survive.

• Moderation is key, of course. If you look at any professional sports player, you will see the results of pushing bodies to extremes: boxing can result in severe brain damage; ballet can result in crippled feet; football can produce the early onset of arthritis. But if artists and athletes didn’t go to extremes, it would be a seriously boring world.
• Pushing our boundaries increases our capacity.
• The intensity of life on the edge is usually more exciting than living in the center.
• Extremes can help us appreciate a normal peaceful life. When I camped among the Maasai for six weeks in a remote part of Kenya, visiting the closest town to have a cold Coke made it the most delicious sugary beverage I’ve ever enjoyed. (We were camping without electricity and no stores of any kind within an hour’s journey.)
• We need rest and contrast. If we live on the edge at all times, the extreme becomes the norm and it’s hard to do the life that most of us need to live… not everyone can be a Ferrari factory test driver.

 

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I took the photo near the top of Mount Democrat, in Colorado. It was actually a very warm day – towards the end of the summit hike, we were in shorts and t-shirts. Everywhere the trail crossed over the snow, it was beaten down enough that crampons were not needed.

A few weeks back, we visited my son at his university. This was significant – our first-born was graduating from college.

He gave us a tour of several significant sites, such as the classroom where he discovered that business was not the program of study to prepare him for a life of professional fulfillment.

Another site of significance was a building where he spent a huge number of hours studying. As we visited the top floor and looked into the courtyard, I was amused to see a large collection of paper airplanes sitting on nearly every surface that could not be easily reached.

And I laughed.

What better way to celebrate that vast interior space than watching a paper airplane take flight?

Sure, it may take quite a bit of effort to retrieve those planes. But maybe leaving them up on those lofty places will serve as a reminder that life is not all about studies and classes and achievements.

A moment of seeing a simple folded piece of paper float down and down can only bring delight.

Almost a month ago, I posted a rather pessimistic view of the way life sometimes plays out (link).

The irony of life is that not two weeks after I wrote that post and took the photo that illustrated my point, pavement engineers provided a wonderful velvety-smooth surface for that very same stretch of road.

Little did I know, they had planned the poor surface as a temporary fix until they had the weather, materials or time in their schedules to spread the new surface.

I thought that road would never improve. But things changed for the better – and much faster than I could have imagined.

Take heart.

Sometimes things in life don’t get better. Or they do, but not on our timetable.

I ride my bicycle to work once or twice a week. My bike’s skinny tires and thin rims transmit variations in the road surface very accurately to my palms and rear end.

During the past four months, the city of Centennial tore up a road that’s part of my commute. It was much better before the destruction than after.

Maybe they will repave the whole road, but I am not expecting that to happen anytime soon.

So it is in our lives… injuries happen. We lose our jobs. People leave. Things happen that are the exact opposite of what we’d choose.

And then situations don’t always change the way we’d like.

But all is not lost. Sometimes we grow stronger because of a difficult situation.

One of the most inspiring people I know has a physical challenge that makes communication difficult. But she has not let that get in her way. She runs circles around many people who don’t face the challenges she does.

I’m not going to say, “Look for the silver lining.” You might be so deep in your challenge that a silver lining is not even on the far horizon.

One reality that I’ve found is God’s way of fixing stuff that appears unfixable. Ask God. Why not… what do you have to lose? (My caveat is that God is not a magic button that you push to get instant results. God’s timetable is usually different than ours.)

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As to bad roads, one upside was remembering that the worst roads in Centennial, Colorado, are better than the best roads in some other places I’ve lived.

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And one of the silver linings in my life is my son Ben. Today is his 21st birthday. Things got better when he arrived. (Sometimes it does get better.)

We just don’t know what’s going on beneath the surface.

People around us are going through a lot. They might be having a good day or a bad day. Their marriage might be in a difficult place.

And many of the people in our lives won’t tell us.

So let’s give everyone around us a little extra love today. One small act of kindness can make a big difference. Maybe we can nudge their dial a little in the direction of having a better day. Or just coping with their next 24 hours.