From a recent post to my favorite blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “Sometimes the shortest path between two points is serpentine.” (Christopher Penfey)
Jack went on to write about how sometimes the shortest (easiest) path in life isn’t the best or most interesting path to take. In the world of exercise and fitness it is well known that 
resistance is the key to building muscle (to increased strength and growth). In life, too, the twisting path or detours offer the type of resistance that allows us to get stronger and grow as human beings. We learn little from the straight and easy paths in life.
It is difficult for most people to appreciate a detour in their life when they encounter one. 
Indeed it is the unexpected nature of those detours that prevent us from planning ahead for them. We can, however, be better prepared mentally for dealing with them. Perhaps it will take us a few moments of reflection to calm down and accept that life has taken yet another turn and that we must do something other than panic about it. In many cases the bend that life may have just taken you around can be very enjoyable. Some of the best times in my life were not the result of planning, but rather just happenstance – another detour that life took me on. I’m sure that all of us can recall some unplanned, but enjoyable event or place that we visited. Those were some of life’s little detours.
The key it seems to me is to be able to take life as it comes at you and deal with
it in as positive a manner as you can. Not every day will be a happy day. Not everything 
that you try will result in success. The secret is figuring out how to use this resistance that life throws at you to grow and get stronger and the key to that is keeping a positive attitude about life. You can start on that by taking to heart this little saying by Joel Osten –
“Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.”
Perhaps your life has been full of detours; things that seemed to throw you off the course that you had planned for your life. Things happen for you to learn from. Things happen for you to enjoy. Things happen, so deal with them. Perhaps the best line in Jack’s post is one that he himself penned –
“I’ve come to realize that the detours can be the best part of the journey.” ( Jack Freed)
So, learn to accept things as they come at you. Learn to enjoy and learn from life’s detours. Life is not a straight-line race to get to the end. The more serpentine it is the more time that you have to enjoy it. Enjoy the journey.
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