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.
Posted by Norm Werner 
particularly true ion the real estate business than I’m in. It is a fear of getting into a situation with which they are unfamiliar or being asked a question by a client that they don’t know the answer to that causes them to delay seeking or taking on clients.
each failure.
esteem and confidence when approaching new things. If you start with the thought in mind that the Lord will not abandon you in tough situations and will give you the strength to find solutions to the problems that you encounter, how can you go wrong? With that in mind, the second most important thing is to be unafraid of saying, “I don’t know, but I know where to go to find out.” Saying, “I don’t know” does not label you and a failure, so long as you demonstrate confidence that you can and will deal with the situation or question. Tossing off a wrong answer or lying to appear to be knowledgeable will get you into more hot water than an honest, “I don’t know.” Clients will not abandon you for that honest answer, so long as you follow up with the answer, once you have found it.
affection. Often these are subtle, not grandiose, things that constitute a connection based upon live or concern and caring. You have hundreds of opportunities every day to do something or say something that takes up residence in someone else’s heart. The great thing is that you also get a small piece of that good feeling in your heart, too.
These days we may not even notice many of the opportunities, because we are “busy” looking down at our smartphones. We have become self-absorbed and self-centered to an extent that we are often by ourselves, even in a crowded room. It’s not that there isn’t room in our hearts for new things, large or small; it’s more that we aren’t paying enough attention to allow them in.
beliefs as obstacles to just having fun playing with another human being. They just play. As adults we let all of our “knowledge” about the world – what we’ve been “taught” by others – get in the way, most of the time before the first word is even spoken. No wonder we have forgotten how to live together, much less to play together.
or life preferences – and open your mind’s eye, so that you can just “see” the person that is there in need of a kind word or gesture. Maybe He can help you overcome your preconceived notions and prejudices long enough for you to discover the kindred spirit of a fellow human being with needs and fears and beliefs that are shared with all others, including you. Maybe that will allow you to act and become that small something that they carry in their heart the rest of the day. You may also discover that they have taken up residence in your heart, too.
The road reaches a deep chasm or faces an intimidating hill.
there for you and feel the power of God lifting you up. Remember God’s promise in Isaiah 41:10 –
Jack went on to write about keeping a sunny disposition and the power of positive thinking, which was probably what Emerson was thinking about, too; when he wrote those words. We tend to associate certain things with the sun – warmth and perhaps happiness and smiles and a positive attitude.
shadows we tend to think about dark things, such as unhappiness, depression, fears, uncertainty and doubts. We don’t like being in the shadows; yet many dwell there because they see no way out of the darkness.
Son of God. In fact, if you surround yourself with His presence in your daily life there will be no place for shadows to form, no dark places for evil to hide, no room for the dark things. He is the way out of the darkness.
Gandhi would surely be aghast at the current times. We see daily headlines about businesses, especially big banks conducting their business without ethics or morals. We read about more and more science being devoted to removing humans from the daily activities of life, including driving; and, we certainly are in the midst of one of the most unprincipled presidential election seasons ever. We have national level politicians loudly proclaiming that they are standing upon their principals as they obstruct legislation; when, in fact, the perches that they occupy are those of bigotry, hate, homophobia and racism.
which the faithful can live. The perversion of many religions comes from the leaders within those religions who find ways to manipulate the written messages of their faith to serve their own purposes. Even in Christianity there are church leaders who loudly thump their Bibles as they spit out messages of hate, exclusion and bigotry. Perhaps Gandhi should have included a fourth danger in his quote – “Religion without love.”
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” — Matthew 22:35-40. If you can get those two down as the base of your values, you are off to a great start.
Failures are a part of life and a key to learning and the building of knowledge and eventually the accumulation of wisdom. Some people experience fewer failures than others, sometimes because they are too afraid of failure to even try. Others may work extra hard at planning to avoid failures, thus limiting themselves to the number of things that they try. Still others go through life blissfully failing at almost everything they try, yet learning nothing from those experiences. Failures happen – move quickly beyond it
that you can never be friends or that you will never get that date. Learn from that failure and move quickly beyond it.
failures is dealing with dead ends and learning to move quickly beyond it.
however, a man or women that others might describe as a beautiful human being will remain a beautiful person in the eyes of the beholder, as long as they never stop being a good person.
coaches or scout leaders or others who had impact in their formative years. For many, their church life – their Sunday School teachers and pastors – help them become good people.
difficult it would be to be a good person, if your life is ruled by prejudices and hate. How easy is it in the rush for material success to just ignore others; rather than being polite and caring and kind? In the back of our minds most of us know what is right, but the demands of our world often overwhelm us and the temptations are often too great for us to take the time to look back there, in the back of our minds, and see what is right.
today may hold, being there to experience it is certainly better than the alternative.
things than to be sitting back and waiting for things to happen to you. It’s also better advice than just being ready to react when something happens to you or in your life. I’ve written a few times about handling problems or crises in our lives, but that is still a reactive thing and not a pro-active thing as is suggested by today’s quote from da Vinci. Are you happening to things?
When you are comfortable with those issues and plans and know where you are going you can swing into action. Are you happening to things?
react to them; but truly successful people seldom let themselves get bogged down in over analyzing the situation at hand. Rather than expending much energy on planning for failure, successful people put their efforts into making success happen. Are you happening to things?
personal nature; and those relationships start by something happening – a chance meeting or a planned introduction. In either case, successful people always take the initiative; they don’t sit back and wait for it to happen; they thrust out their hands first and introduce themselves; they happen to the other parties in the meeting. Are you happening to things?
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