The Trail that Looked Like It Was Going Backward

Idris had been climbing for six hours when he sat down on a rock and refused to go on.

He had been laid off in the spring. His savings had thinned by summer. The small business he built afterward had just lost its only client. He had come up the mountain to clear his head, and the mountain was making it worse.

"This trail is a joke," he said to the old woman who ran the tea hut at the bend. "Look at it, every few minutes it turns around and heads the wrong way. It's obvious I'm walking back toward where I started."

She poured him a cup and said nothing. Then she walked him to the edge of the hut's porch and pointed down.

"Where is the village you left this morning?" She asked.

Idris squinted, the view was a scatter of roofs, very small, far below him. At dawn it had been the whole world.

"The trail did not go backward," she said. "It turned so the mountain could be climbed. A path that goes straight up is a cliff. A path that goes up and sideways, and up and sideways again, is a road. Every turn that felt like losing ground is the reason your legs are still carrying you."

Idris drank his tea slowly and looked at how small the village had become.

Some seasons of life feel exactly like that stretch of trail: a closed door, a failed plan, a year that seems to undo the last. But a setback is not always a step back. Sometimes it is a switchback, a turn that points you the wrong way for a while so you can gain height you could not gain any other way.

The Moral Of The Story

When your path turns back on itself, check the view before you decide you are lost. You may be higher than you were this morning.

A Quote for Thought:

"Not every turn is a retreat. Some are the only way up."

Your mind is wiser now, share this piece to enrich the mind of your people.