No, not detergents… things that work to deter you from whatever your plans are. But, more about that later.
It was another early start. Poor night sleep led to an early rise and once the little furry friends were taken care of, I hopped in the car with a faithful cup of coffee and drove down to Ballast Pointe, a few miles south of downtown Tampa.
In Lakeland, it was very overcast and rainy. My head was sore and my stomach was sick, and I was insanely tired for just having gotten up, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from this journey.
It wasn’t that I needed another sunrise for my portfolio of work … I needed it for my soul. In crazy times like these it is easy to forget to feed our soul and then we go through these patches where life feels merely an existence. And a sad one, at that.
So, all the drive down I sipped gently on my coffee, trying to give my head time to catch up with the rest of my body.
But any feel-sorry-for-myself notions disappeared when I pulled into the parking lot beside a pick-up truck and noticed a young couple asleep in the front while all their possessions were piled high in the back. I guess making America great didn’t include them.
So I quietly finished the ends of my coffee and stepped out without slamming the door and walked towards the pier.
It was still quite dark. This dark:
But I could tell that the clouds here were breaking up and there was every prospect of a sunrise if things would stay this way.
Anyway I did get a bunch of pics and have attached them at the end of the blog (including one that I altered to put something on the end of the fisherman’s line). I hope you enjoy and at least you get to see the progression from darkness to sunrise.
There were other folks there seeing in the new start to the day, just like me. Fishermen, joggers, cyclists, singles, lovers, families … even other camera guys.
And as I drove home I was thinking about how all of them made the effort to get there in time for this natural event and wondered what obstacles they had to overcome to do so.
At the very least, they had to get out from under the warm covers but perhaps some had to make a special effort.
And I examined my own effort and the issues that got in my way to try to deter me from doing this, this morning.
Deterrents are real and exist on almost every avenue we try to travel. Those who live their lives along a path of least resistance may not even notice them, but I view deterrents as the price you have to pay for doing something.
Sometimes the result is well worth the price and others not so much.
But this life adventure we are on doesn’t come with a money-back guarantee.
And that is fine. As I have said many times before, it is the journey itself that makes life worth living, not the destination.
Some deterrents are internal (not feeling well, tired, or whatever) and others external (detours, car problems, or whatever), and while we should indeed listen to them, we should never allow them to dictate whether we do or don’t embark on that journey.
Weigh them as factors, but that is all.
When we give such weight to them that they disable our plans, then our lives become just a little less and the sun rises for nothing.
… just a thought!
