Focus on the road

I spent most of yesterday driving and exploring the national forest that lays only thirty minutes from my apartment. While driving, I found myself veering off the road. I would look out to the side and be distracted by trivial things. A dog walking down the street. A person mowing the grass. A white house with a wrap-around porch. You name it, and I wanted to study this little insignificant thing. My friend and I began to joke about how my driving reminded us a lot of life. See, we have this road, this path, in our heads. This can be anything from making bill payments, graduating from college, starting your own business. Anything in the world. This can be the road you are embarking on.
Yet little trivial matters pass by that grab your attention. This can be a pair of shoes at the store or that cool party where you will be too busy drinking to remember your paper due tomorrow. Any little distraction. Anything that in the grand scheme of things will not matter if you miss it. My trip would not have been lacking in something had I not looked off to that little white house. This is the same with life. My life would not be lacking if I stayed in tonight to write that paper instead of drinking. Life is a lot like driving. When we look ahead, we see our future, the path we are taking. It comes to us slowly. When we look at our side, we see our present; these moments that surround us. It passes by quickly. Finally, our back window, our past. It disappears just as slowly as it came. We watch as memories seep by. If I were to turn my head and focus on the past, I would crash, and my journey would be delayed or altered. If I focus too much on the present with no care of my future, I again wreck my car. Life is like this. We need to be able to look ahead and see our future. It is okay to glance around and enjoy the moments passing by, but we cannot dwell on these trivial things and risk never reaching our intended destination. If we want to view our surroundings and enjoy our present, we must slow down our journey. Take longer and go slower. Do not try and speed through this path and try to look around. In life and on the road, you will only crash. If we truly want to embark on this journey, we must focus on the road ahead.

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