Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Even In The Dark Stay On The Path

I was peddling feverishly down the bike trail this morning. I hadn't been able to sleep all that well, too many ideas bouncing around in my head, so I was up uber early this morning and decided to jump on the bike. The trail was particularly dark and almost ominous as I dropped it into the hardest gear and began my workout.

Although you wouldn't necessarily call it fall, at least not in Austin, I had been noticing a significant amount of active wildlife in during my early morning rides these past two weeks. Talk about testing your mettle, try busting it down a dark and deserted bike trail and every so often just glimpsing the glare of eyeballs staring out from the depths of the darkness. I try to keep my eyes peeled on the trail and just listen to my iPod not tempting my imagination to get the best of me otherwise I don't think I would be too keen on going every morning. Though I try not to think about it, I know the eyes are always there.

I was nearly forty minutes into the ride deep into a wooded area when the headlight on my bike suddenly went from bright to dim. I slowed down and instantly remembered I had forgotten to charge my batteries. As I mentally beat myself up for forgetting to put the batteries on the charger the headlight went from dim to dead. I skidded to a stop.

The was total silence. The beat of my pounding heart reverberated in my ears. I was no where close to being done with my ride, or close to being home for that matter, and suddenly I found myself alone. In the dark. It easily an hour before dawn and it began to look as if I were stuck.

I am one to weigh my options pretty closely when faced with any kind of situation. I started looking at what choices I could make.

1. I could stay where I was until at least the outside light got bright enough and head home. All things considered it wouldn't be all that bad; I could do a little meditating or serious thinking. But then movement off to my backside through the trees gave me a jolt and I noticed at least a couple of pairs of eyes had suddenly appeared. I was not in an area where people normally stop so I was thinking at that point maybe that wasn't a great option.

2. I could take a slow walk back down the trail and catch one of the offshoots out to the main road and just ride home. There would be early, early morning traffic and I had not worn reflective clothing so that likely wouldn't be smart. I had visions of some groggy executive wiping the sleep from his eyes plowing into my sorry butt with his Hummer. Not an appealing option.

3. I realized I could just be cautious, let my eyes adjust and follow the path that I knew. I've been down the path a hundred times and though it wasn't likely the smartest thing to do, I needed to get home sometime before the cows came home and it looked like my most appealing option.

I am not sure how I necessarily made the leap from understanding my predicament to appreciating the value of the lesson I was being shown and just how it applies to real life. I just know as I pound out this BLOG post there is a lesson to be learned here and one worth sharing.

You see we all have our path. We all have a direction that we need to follow. Life will throw you curve balls from time to time and it is always easier to panic and get off course. However, just as I found out this morning, the path, our path, is there for a reason. It is there to guide and direct us and to help us find our way even when we may not know where we should be going. It may be hard to see and sure it may be hard to follow but if you stay the course even in the darkest of times it will take you where you need to go.

I made it home safely. The boggie man didn't jump out and grab me. A massive buck didn't come charging out from the brush to defend his territory or mount me (thank God for that!). I took my time, let my eyes, ears and all of my senses take hold found the path, stayed the course and followed it all the way back home.

As I begin my day I think I shall do the same for the other more obvious life and career paths that I am going down as well. After all who needs a headlight....it's actually more fun without it.

Ripple On!!!


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2 comments:

Sue said...

Ooh, Awesome post Steve!

Anonymous said...

Steve you have a very unique way of sucking us in with your stories and then popping us upside the head with a great lesson. Thank you sir for being such an inspiration.

Tammy