'Don't Cheat the Journey'

My daughter recently tried to race through some home work, not wanting to face the fact that something was throwing her a bit (most things come easy for this one and she falters when she has to try a bit harder at times). She was having to read through a chapter to find a specific adjective – something that answered the question, “What kind of?” I asked her to read aloud and noticed that she was just hunting for the answer. She was getting frustrated and she just wanted to be done. When I called her on it, asking her to tell me what the content of that part of the story was – she said she wasn’t paying attention because she just wanted to get through.

I took pause for a moment as I realized that my daughter is very much her mother when I was that age, for this was how I used to live most of my younger days – racing through to get to the end so that I could be on to the next thing. When I was young, I wanted to be older, when I started a project, I wanted to rush past the important steps to get to the fun parts – when I was in sports I wanted the games and none of the practices . . . when a problem came my way, I just wanted to fix it so I could move beyond the discomfort of the situation.

As I got older and life set in a bit, I began to realize that while finding a quick solution may be necessary for some things, it’s not always the right answer for every problem. What I found in trying to operate in this mode was that more than not, the very thing that I thought was the answer often became the source of more questions. Because having an answer is one thing – UNDERTANDING the answer is something all together different.

I told my daughter to go back and re-read - slowly - so that she could SEE what she was looking for. Along the way, she discovered that the story she sped through before was actually interesting. She spent a little more time and began to understood the characters, how the story was unfolding and all of a sudden, she stumbled upon the answer. She actually saw it quite easily and she had peace because she wasn’t so bent on the mission. She actually enjoyed the journey of discovering the answer.

I have found that life is very much like this. When I try too hard to get to where I think I need to be, I miss out on discovering the details of the journey. I miss out on the unfolding of my character – on what I can become as I walk along the journey. I’ve discovered that short-cuts, even in heavy traffic can end up taking much longer then the orchestrated route.

Stay on course and don’t cheat your journey . . .