The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But we’re not always gifted a clear path to follow.
There are times our journey takes us on twists and turns that, in hindsight, seem like they weren’t needed at all.
With the benefit of 20/20 vision looking back upon our past choices, it’s easy to think that we would have chosen differently if we had only known then what we know now…
And in doing so, that we would have avoided the strain and reached a place we were happy with all the more rapidly.
Maybe. But probably not.
There are lessons to be learned from our experiences. Even those we’d rather not be subject to, and wouldn’t put ourselves through if we had a choice.
If we don’t learn those lessons in one domain, we’ll learn them in another. Because the insights we require will come in many forms until they’re received.
The road may seem long when we look back – longer than it needed to be.
But the truth is it’s exactly as long as it needed to be to bring us here.
A longer road still would have been all we gained from picking another path.
Rather than cursing our lack of hindsight and wishing things had been different, we should embrace our journey – both looking back and looking forward.
More important than finding an easy way is finding the right way.
What makes one set of trials worth going through and another a burden we’d rather not think about is our ability to productively process and integrate what we’ve learned.
The value of the journey – no matter how long the road – lies in what it shows us about ourselves along the way.