Greetings,
This morning, like every morning, I walked my dog. I have a 4 year old Doberman (Nina) and she loves her walks. She makes unworldly sounds of joy, sound a big ferocious Doberman should not be making, when I grab the leash and she knows it is time to head out the front door. Despite her size and power, she is an excellent walking buddy and stays beside me (my wife trained her well) but she does like to be ever so slightly ahead of me and takes every inch of the little amount of slack that I give her. She does not pull hard, only a small amount, attempting to get me to move a little faster. Other than the occasional suicidal rabbit that scurries across our path, our walks are uneventful, peaceful and enjoyable.
I mentioned that Nina likes to be ever so slightly ahead of me. I think she likes to think that she is in charge of the path we will take. The problem is that she is a dog and has no idea where we are going. This presents a problem when we come to a fork in the path (sidewalk). She does a pretty good job of guessing the correct path but this is more likely due to the path being familiar to her (like a trail horse walking the same trail every day). She (Nina) likes routines whereas I like to take a different path from time to time. When we come to a choice, she either guesses correctly or she guesses wrongly. When she guesses correctly, I imagine she thinks that she made the choice of where we will go next. Ultimately of course she goes where I want to go and a quick yank on the leash sets her straight if she guessed wrong and after changing direction she quickly inches out in front of me as she “leads” me in the rest of our walk. On a recently morning, I began to see Nina’s habits during our walks as having a parallel to my life. In a brief moment of clarity during that morning I had an epiphany.
You see, I like to think that I am in control of my life. If you liken my life’s path to our walking path and if I assume that I am either the human or the dog as I am walking down life’s path then (up until recently) I would have said that I am the human. I am in control. I control the leash and I can decide which direction to go when there is a choice of direction. This morning I realized that I might just be the dog; ever thinking that I am in control, that I am leading the walk. When I have a choice between going this way or that in my life, it may be that I only seem to have control. The times that I chose correctly were the times that I just happened to guess correctly (or that the part was familiar enough to me that the choice was obvious). When I choose / guess incorrectly, inevitably there is some force there to yank on my leash and get me going in the right direction.
I have had some recent changes in my life path and I see a few more possible forks in the road ahead and this path does not look familiar right now. I am momentarily confused (like Nina when she guesses wrong) but I have a feeling that I will be OK soon enough, inching as far ahead as my leash will let me go. Some of this new path will look familiar (I hope). I am also hopeful (confident maybe?) that whoever it is that has their hand on the leash knows what they are doing. I have been very fortunate that my past wrong choices on my life path have not caused me (or my loved ones) too much discomfort so I probably need not worry too much. For now I think that I am just going to enjoy the walk and not think about the upcoming forks in the road.
Jon
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