The Way

The Way written 1997

         Each day for several years a man went to work at the same place.  He  always went through the same neighborhoods and usually down the same streets.  Even when he changed his route it would be a direct one that would deliver him to work on time.

    One day found himself in a strange part of town though he had taken the usual route.  Thinking he must have been distracted and made a wrong turn he went back the way he had come until he reached a familiar street. He then set out again only to find himself in yet another unfamiliar part of town.  Now late for work, frustrated and confused he again backtracked to a familiar street.  He started out again and again found himself in one strange place after another. 

    Finally he gave up the idea of getting to work. He was almost overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. Below his frustration he had a gnawing fear that he might be loosing his mind but he was also very curious.  He had apparently found a hole in the world. The way to work changed every time he took it.  Interesting yes but how would he ever get to work? 

    Then he suddenly realized this was the way things had always been.  He realized he had never been able to get where he intended to go because while he was on the way, the world would change.  It was like going to a restraint and delayed by traffic finding it closed by the time he arrived. He realized that if he kept on using the same old familiar way of getting somewhere, he would never get where he wanted to go because the world is always changing.

    His problem was if he tried a new way he would still find himself in a place different from where the old way would have taken him.  He realized that whenever he had tried to go directly to what he wanted it would disappear before he got there.  If he didn't go directly toward what he wanted he got lost on the way and arrived in some new and strange place he hadn't planed to go. 

         During his life he had had lots of jobs.  Some were very interesting but not especially what he had intended to do.  He had worked hard to find his life's work but somehow he had never really found it.  Wait! He thought, he hadn't always been loosing his way. Sometimes yes but at other times when the distance was short he went right to it. It was the long distance goals he couldn’t get to. It was like the phenomenon his astronomer friend had described. If you see a distant star going nova, the star is actually gone by the time you see it. That is because it takes so long for the image to travel to your eye that by the time you see the star it no longer exists..

         The image of a profession seen by a child may be gone before the child matures. The work he will actually do is what he finds himself doing as an adult. Perhaps the functional aspects of some professions are unchanging but he didn’t know of one. As he thought about all this he suddenly knew he could find his work.

    His work would be exactly where the changes of time put it.  Gee that was logical; of course his work would be where he would find it.  Where else could it be?  He had been so busy looking for his work where he thought it ought to be had never had time to look where it was going to be when he got there.  He had been so intent on doing things just so that he had gotten very few things completely done.  He had spent so much time becoming he had had no time to be. He had spent so much time trying to get things that he had almost nothing. 

    He decided he would do his work where he found it, he would do something else  when he felt like it  and if he didn't get the first thing done completely he would do the second thing and complete the first thing when he got around to it. He decided he would just be what he was enjoy whatever he was doing and be thankful for all the things he had.