November - Reflecting on Your Tracks in the Snow
by Susan Myhre Hayes on 11/18/12
Reflecting on Your Tracks in the Snow
Each of us has a unique role to play in our lives and the universe – however you envision the force larger than yourself – supports us as we find and play our role by providing experiences to lead us. Reflection is one tool to help us each discover that unique role.
Reflection causes us to think about possible links between our recent experiences and earlier ones in order to discover commonalities and interrelations between them. These common threads lead us to think about our life in total and see patterns. Seeing and acting on these common threads allow us to see more clearly our unique role.
Consider the following story:
Once upon a time at a large university, the president, being a woman of order, was concerned about the fact the students did not walk on the sidewalks. This resulted in sad looking grass, and additional maintenance costs associated with continually making that sad grass look happy again.
Announcements were made to get the students to stay on the sidewalks, speeches were delivered, emails and texts were sent to get the students to stay on the sidewalks. They still walked on the grass.
Frustrated, the President consulted with a motivational specialist before the school year began in the fall. After hearing about the problem and touring the campus, the motivational specialist assured her that for $10,000, he could get the students to stay on the sidewalk.
She was delighted.
School started, and the students continued to ignore the sidewalks. The President continued to be upset. The motivational specialist did nothing.
The leaves began to fall, the students continued to ignore the sidewalks. The president continued to be upset. The motivational specialist continued to do nothing.
By Thanksgiving, the President had had enough and angrily called the motivational specialist.
“When are you going to do something?” she demanded.
“Patience,” he said, “I will have an answer for you by year’s end at the latest, and a solution for you by spring.”
By spring, the motivational specialist had contracted with a landscape architect to take out the old sidewalks and replace them with new ones. And, lo and behold, the students stayed on the sidewalks.
The President happily paid the bill for $10,000 but called the motivation specialist out of curiosity.
“How did you get the students to walk on the sidewalks?” she asked.
“After the first snowfall, I took pictures of where the footprints were and put the new sidewalks where the students were already walking.”
In the story above, the path was always there. The students were on their path. The sidewalks were in the wrong place and someone else’s idea of where the path should be.
Reflect on your tracks in the snow and look for patterns - patterns leading you to your peace in the puzzle.
