Lost
I must admit that there was a time that I was lost. I was going down the wrong road trying very hard to get to my destination, stomping my foot harder on the accelerator in my hurry to get there, but it wasn't getting me there.
The boyscouts were buckled in the back seat, three of them. They were looking forward to getting more merit badges, nice campfires, marshmallows, and everything else that awaited their two weeks at camp. Their duffle was packed, and the tents awaited.
I was to be their leader, if I could only find the way to get them there.
But somehow, I was given the wrong directions. I must have taken a right turn when I should have gone straight, or something else. I missed the turn.
I admit it.
So after barreling down that dirt road for about a half an hour, going nowhere closer to where I thought we were going, I stopped.
I was lost. So were the three eager boy scouts in the backseat, all nicely dressed in their pressed uniforms. They just didn't know it yet.
After I turned off the ignition, I turned to them in the backseat and admitted that I had made a mistake, or someone else had made a mistake when they wrote the directions, and the reality of the situation, boys, is that we're lost, very lost.
So guys, what do you think we should do?
Well, for being young they provided some good insight.
One said that if we're going in the wrong direction, going further in that direction wouldn't get us closer to where we were hoping to go.
Good point.
And trying to get there faster won't get there either.
OK...
So, what do you think I should do, guys?
One said, how about turning around, going back a while, finding someone that might know how to get there, and asking for new directions.
That was good advice!
So, about an hour later, I came upon a logger that was climbing off his skidder.
He knew exactly where we wanted to go and gave new directions. The new way was complicated and tough to follow, and in all honesty, I wish I'd listened better. Unfortunately, I didn't.
So after another hour and a half of turning here and watching for this sign post, we were even more lost than before. Go figure.
The boy scouts had stopped their "are we there yet?" long enough to realize that we weren't.
I was a bit more than frustrated by now. I asked the three of them, well guys, what do you think. Two of the three said we were definitely going in the wrong direction. The other one said he didn't know, but it didn't matter to him. He said we should just keep going the way we were going and maybe, hopefully we'd get there.
Thankfully, I went with the advice of the two-thirds polling. We turned around and a little while later, there was a highway. A half mile later, an ice cream place came up. We all had triple scoop cones, any flavors, and the nice gal behind the counter gave me a new map.
Ten minutes later, we arrived in camp, ten minutes after that, we were unpacked, and five minutes later, we were all swimming in the cool waters of that beautiful lake. Splish, splash.
No longer lost!
|