{"id":2931,"date":"2019-06-22T17:12:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T17:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nevilleronan.com\/blog\/?p=2931"},"modified":"2019-07-21T17:17:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T17:17:39","slug":"lives-and-forks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevilleronan.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/22\/lives-and-forks\/","title":{"rendered":"Lives and forks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anticipating a day in the nineties, I decided to take to the\ntrails first thing this morning before the sun and humidity took over the day.\nSo I grabbed a couple of cameras and began yet another journey down towards\nLake Hancock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was only ten minutes in when I came to a fork in the trail\n\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 there was a little sign that gave me a choice of a lakeside trail or a shady\noak trail. And my choice took me onto a path adorned with plants and trees\ncovered with wonderful early morning dew. These are my two favorite shots and I\nhope you like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the simple fork in the trail gave me cause to think,\nwhen faced with such forks how do we go about choosing our path when given such\nlittle information to make a choice? Of course there are some people in life,\nthat when encountering a fork, they typically go to the right and there are\nthose that go to the left. And there are those that don\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t even see the fork\nbecause they are so committed to the right or left that there isn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t even a\nchoice to be made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are those that stand there at the fork, unable to\nmake a choice of their own. They wait for someone to tell them which way to go\nor perhaps some divine intervention to help them walk towards the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There must be millions of such forks in our lives and our\nability to decide and move forward is really what makes our journey unique. No\ntwo of us actually follow the same path. Because, as happened this morning on\nthe trail, we make our decisions for our own reasons and while it may look like\nwe are going in the same direction for a while, we are encountering little more\nthan temporary companions. On my chosen path this morning, I encountered others\n\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 there were lone naturalists, couples out for a stroll, a dad and his kid on\nbikes. There was a middle aged son with his elderly parents, and three\nlong-distance runners momentarily on the same path as me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each had their own reasons; perhaps social, fitness, love of\nnature, or who knows what. My reason was that I miss my Mom and Dad and these\noutings really bring me closer to them and gives me time to talk with them\n away from the maddening noise of \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cregular life\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d. So, it is highly\nunlikely that others shared my specific reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The funny thing is that whichever path you chose this\nmorning, you ended up at the same lake. You may have taken longer in one\ndirection than the other, you may have experienced different smells and sounds,\nseen different creatures or plants. But ultimately you arrived at the same\nplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the start of alligator nesting season, so they had\nplaced a barrier on the trail that ultimately became a dead-end. Much like our\nown journeys through life where we all reach our own dead-end eventually. So,\nif you spent your journey this morning, racing forward trying to get around the\nlake, then you missed out on what the journey was really about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our journeys bring us past roses, then we should really\nstop and smell them. If there are forks that give us alternatives along our\npath, then we need to make our own decisions and see where they take us. Mine\nbrought me through dew-covered webs and I stopped and marveled at each one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is too precious to run through it at pace or to have\nothers make our decisions for us. By the time we reach that dead-end, we should\nhave savored every step along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a wonderful week and if you would like to see the\nawesome alligator that come over to check me out when I reached the lake, I\nuploaded a one-minute video on YouTube here \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 https:\/\/youtu.be\/74rYCu-BVbM<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n