Enjoy The Scenery On Life’s Detours Because You’ll Probably Take A Few

“It’s worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It’s a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you’ll probably take a few.”  – Bill Watterson (creator of  Calvin and Hobbes)

As I think about the journey my life has been thus far I cannot help but laugh at how all the twist and turns and detours my life has taken, which at the time felt like epic disasters or disappointments, when viewed in hindsight were obviously important routes that were leading me to the destination I was meant to arrive at.

This last year of trying to build an office building has been full of disappointment and frustration as we hit road block after road block and city delay after city delay. We went from being so excited about building to being discouraged and feeling frustrated and frankly feeling beaten down by the entire process. We’d worked so hard on this project for so long and weren’t getting anywhere. That’s when the sign showed up saying “Detour” as a different building came up for sale unexpectedly. Should we take that detour or stay the course we were on??? When my husband told me he’d called the city and been told yet again that the approvals still weren’t ready I knew what we needed to do – TAKE THE DETOUR!!!

It’s amazing how often in life that happens. We have the best laid out plan when we work our tails off on them only for things to go sideways and leave us wondering how in the world we’d gotten so lost? But the reality is your not lost at all…life’s just taking you on a detour… because that detour is is leading going to take you to the place you were really meant to go.

In hindsight its easy to see why the detour happened and recognize what it did for you in the end…the harder part is enjoying the scenery when things are going wrong….I struggled enjoying the journey of this building process, but it has definitely reminded me to have more faith that as long as we keep doing our best to move forward in life that God will help us get to where we are truly meant to be.

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )

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