Possibilities

Wednesday’s Wildflower…♥…”YOU, whose day it is, make it beautiful. Get out your rainbow colors, so it will be BEAUTIFUL.“       Traditional Nootka Song

“It’s the funniest thing, Grandfather.”

“What’s that, Lily?”

“This ant, here, on the path.”

Grandpa squatted down to take a look. “What about the ant, Lily?”

“Why, the peculiar way he’s behaving! There’s a stream of water here that he’s going to run into if he doesn’t change courses, and I keep trying to help him! I’ve blocked his path with my hand, I’ve put obstacles in the way–I’ve even pushed him in several different directions! But no matter what I do, he insists on going this one silly way. And that’s doomsday for him, Grandpa. This ant…he’ll get swept away by that water, and he’ll die.”

Grandpa rubbed his chin. “Or…he might sense the water and eventually choose a different path.”

Lily shook her head. “Extremely doubtful,” she grumbled. “As many hints and clues as I’ve given him, I’d be awfully surprised if this ant figured anything out.”

Grandpa chuckled, then slowly stood up. “Poor fellow. I must say, I know exactly how he feels.”

“Whatever are you talking about, Grandfather?”

“Oh, I was a young lad once, Lily, young and inexperienced, like this ant appears to be. I spent most of my youth behaving just like him, with crystal-clear ideas of the way I wanted things to go, of the path I thought I was supposed to take in life, and I was completely resistant to anything else. No other possibilities dared to enter my mind. But then roadblocks started appearing along the way, many roadblocks, and I found that the more I pushed, the more I forced, the worse off I eventually was. It took me awhile to learn that sometimes a person needs to just surrender to a new direction, to go with the flow, and see what happens.”

“Like when, Grandpa? Give me an example, please, because you’ve always seemed quite flexible to me.”

“An example, hmm…let’s see,” Grandpa gazed up at the sky, then started smiling. “Why, something happened right here on this county road one day that completely changed my life, that changed your Grandmother’s life, that changed your father’s life.”

“Let’s hear it,” Lily grunted, stomping her foot in between the ant and the water, “before I lose my patience with this ant!”

Grandpa looked down the road, visualizing the story in his head…it seemed like only yesterday.

“One day, when your father was only a baby, I was on my way into the city to an important job interview, driving down this very road, to a job I really wanted to get because the farm wasn’t doing very well then, and your Grandmother and I needed some extra money to keep things going. It didn’t feel right, going into the city, even though, as I said, I wanted the job very much and saw it as our only solution out of debt. But I was distracted, leaving the farm and my family, so I ended up swerving off the road when a chipmunk ran in front of my car. The little rascal…caused my car to swivel around, and I ran into the rocks here at the side of the road, giving myself a flat tire. Stuck, I was, without a spare and no help in sight because, well, we didn’t have any of them fancy phones around that you young people are so attached to today.”

“They’re called cell phones, Grandpa, and I don’t even have one yet.”

“Yes, yes…that’s what you call ’em, cell phones. Anyway, there I was on the side of the road, miserable because I knew that I was going to miss the job interview that was supposed to save the farm, and I knew I wouldn’t be given another chance to get that job. It was a good job, with many applicants, too many for them to save the position for me.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, then Betsy down the road drove by on her way into town. You know Betsy–my old partner? She got out of her truck, looked at me–looked at my car–then broke out into laughter and said, ‘Why John, what at a wonderful gift!'”

“A gift?”

“Yes, I know, I thought the woman was darn-near crazy. But it turned out that she offered me the world that day, she helped me to see a new possibility. You see, her husband had just passed away about a year earlier, and Betsy was struggling. She needed a handyman, and she knew that I needed a job. So she offered me that job, we became dear, dear friends, and, the rest is history. Her family and ours eventually went into business together, boarding and raising horses, providing your Grandmother and I with plenty of money to save the farm and to live a good life.”

Lily paused, still frustrated. “But, what’s that got to do with this ant? I’m afraid that I don’t understand, Grandpa.”

Grandpa bent down, somehow got the stubborn ant to climb onto the tip of his thumb, then stepped across the stream of water to take the ant to the other side. “There you go, little buddy. Go feed your family.”

“Change, Lily,” they watched the ant go. “Change can be hard, and sometimes we need help surrendering to it. Just like I needed help letting go of my ideas about that job in the city, that ant needed help in seeing a new way to get across the stream. In time, with enough help, most of us eventually figure out that everything unfolds the way it’s supposed to unfold. We don’t need to feel so in control of every single thing that happens in our lives. We need to let go sometimes, to surrender to a new possibility, realizing that everything is falling perfectly into place, whether we understand it or not. That day on the road, with Betsy? It was just one of many lessons for me in life that, sometimes, a person needs to just sit back and enjoy the journey. It’s not always necessary to kick and fight along the way.”

Change…see the possibilities. Where others may see life in only “black and white,” choose to make YOUR LIFE one of vibrant color.

Thank you for “sharing” and “liking” any blog that moves you. Have a special day…♥

Photos on Visual Hunt. Photo credit: KatinBlack on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA. Photo credit: Phil’s 1stPix on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA.