NormsMilfordBlog

From the blog The Best of Jack’s Winning Words comes this bit of wisdom – “The truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.”  (Unknown)

We are in the midst of the orange barrel season of road repairs in Michigan, so I get to take lots of detours. I must admit that it may be easier for me to enjoy the scenery on those detours, because I seldom am in that big of a hurry to get somewhere these days. Being retired gives one that luxury.

What Jack wrote about in his blog was being happy with the scenery when life takes you on detours. As he put it “…the unexpected, the forced route changes. Maybe an illness, a job loss, a family problem.” We’ve all been there at some point in our lives. No matter how careful one is, diseases and illnesses can disrupt our lives and force detours. Our interaction with others almost guarantees disagreements on something and further unplanned side trips.

Our culture doesn’t help. Rather than embracing the advice that Jack gave to relax and enjoy the new scenery of a detour in life, we are cajoled to “fight through it”, to take a pill and carry on. Even worse, we have become so cynical as a society that we ignore the posted signs of trouble or danger ahead.

I live on a street that is undergoing major reconstruction. It has signs post a 1/2block away that clearly state that the road is not passible as a through street, yet I see cars all day ling driving around that sign and proceeding until they encounter the large machine or piles of gravel that completely block the road just beyond my driveway. Needless to say, they do not enjoy the scenery as the have to turn around and take the detour.

We tend to be like that as a society…ignoring the warning signs of declining health (both physical and mental) until it is too late or pushing ourselves beyond the limits that our bodies and minds tell us is enough, until we break down. Those breakdowns can be physical or mental, but the result is the same – you reach the point where you can go no further. Some turn around and take the detour, but others get stuck there and fall into depression. They are no only unable to enjoy the scenery of the changes in their life, they are unable to accept and deal with those changes.

Many of the detours that we take in life are self-imposed. They are trips down the rat holes of “what if?” We tend to waste a lot of time exploring the worst cases scenarios that our minds conjure up as we face something new or different or maybe scary. Perhaps if we treated it like we do a lottery ticket the scenery would look better. No one buys a lottery ticket and then spends the next hour thinking about how they will lose. They think (dream) about all of the wonderful things that might be able to do when they win.

One of the side benefits of having faith in one’s life is the ability to offload the fear and anxiety of life’s detours onto God, so that you can relax and enjoy the scenery of that detour. I use the little prayer, “Not my will, but thy will be done” to surrender to God’s will, so that I can focus on the scenery. There are always new things to be seen and understood in any crisis if one is not consumed by anger or fear or the pain of a loss.

So, when life throws a detour your way, check in with God through prayer and get God’s lottery ticket to a better life. You can then relax and enjoy the scenery of that little detour…you’ve got God as your tour guide.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2023 at 1:01 pm and is filed under faith, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.