“It
is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and
make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet
wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years
since I trod it, it is still quite distinct,” wrote Thoreau near the end of Walden, as he reflected on why he went
to the cabin in the woods and why he left. Similarly, when my kids were little, we often walked to the
local bakery, usually on the same side of the street. When we used the opposite sidewalk, the kids called it “the
sneaky way.”
Leaving
our usual paths and taking the sneaky way shifts our perspective. I ride the same routes on my bike most
of the time. Over the weekend, I
rode a new way. I saw new
views. I faced new
challenges. And growth happened.
Even
during the ride, the perspective changed.
The top picture is from near the beginning of the ride, the next two are
from the middle and the end, each showing a bigger world. Fitness is about a bigger world, one
with more adventures and laughter and play.
Let’s
explore the big world. (Oh, the title is swiped from Chaucer, on the desire to travel in April.)
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