PHOTO CHALLENGE
Path
For this end-of-year challenge, consider your own path.

Life’s path

Life path, or walk, is like a trip through a maze, it offers bewilderment, confusion and perplexity but also amazement. There are many choices or paths and directions to follow. This could be a very short trip, in case of a tragedy or it could be a very long and rewarding trip. Time spent in the maze depends upon the choices and the paths that we follow. In this story, I picture life as being lived out in that maze, you exit the maze when you die.

When a new life is born it is not particular where it takes place, it could be in an airplane, taxicab, at home, maybe on a walking path in the middle of a rice paddy, or possibly even in a hospital delivery room. That baby may stay on mother’s back while she works in the rice paddies, or could come home from the delivery room to a silver spoon in it’s food, maybe sleeping in a heirloom baby cradle, or if the parents were poor, the first bed might be in a dresser drawer. That new life requires instant, constant care, feeding and nurturing to get it started off on the right path that it will soon start to follow.

When a child first learns to walk everyone in the family is happy to see the healthy little child walking all by itself. They watch the little one on wobbly legs quickly sit down on its rear, with encouragement then crawl back to a standing up place to walk some more. This little life is getting ready to start into that maze of life, to choose which path to follow. Already knowing, when you fall down, get right back up!

A child’s first days at school should be exciting and full of enthusiasm and anticipation as they start learning what education is all about. Hopefully they had a good start at home with mothers and fathers reading to them, telling them stories and learning the basics of what education will be as the child grows into adolescence and then adulthood. Those first educational paths are possibly the most important paths in a person’s life.

During the time of adolescence the maze can quickly turn into a labyrinth, with several paths leading to one place, destruction. The young people today, are constantly tempted from many directions, by far to many wrong things to take part in. Special care needs to be taken on which paths to take. Hopefully they will listen to warnings from parents, teachers and caring friends. There are many times when just one wrong path harms the person for the rest of his life. This might be called the school of hard knocks. The problem is, one mistake can be very costly and do irreversible damage to the mind and the body.

After formal education is done, a decision has to be made on which path to take into the working world. Usually there are several choices on the path to follow according to what educational experience you received. There are many jobs in the working world where you learn as you go, learning on the job is usually experience, or education that you never forget.

Which path to follow as far as finding a marriage partner. This should not be a haphazard, trial and error adventure. Sometimes it can be awful hard just waiting for Cupid to show up with his little bow and quiver overflowing with arrows. It might be best to follow where your heart leads you, instead of your head. The path to follow must be full of pot holes, many sharp turns and very complicated, when we consider so many unmarried couples and such a high divorce rate in this world.

Life’s path or maze can appear to be very scary, and difficult at best, when there are so many different paths to take. We know there will be wrong paths taken, hopefully we learn from that path and don’t take it again. I am nearing the end of my path, my body and my sneakers both show it! Hopefully the last days will be at a ripe old age with smiles on our faces, knowing that we did our best. Then we can rest in peace.

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