What Ever It Takes (Or going out on a limb)

One of my favorite walking routes is to follow a dirt road next to a canal. The canal flows between residential backyards and farmland and I always enjoy seeing the animals and watching the farmers as they tend to their early morning chores. One Saturday, I stopped along the way to admire a beautiful tree loaded with hundreds of perfectly ripe, delicious apricots. The tree had grown over the canal and there appeared to be no way to reach them. Apricots are one of my favorite foods and I knew I just had to find a way. As I surveyed the situation, a fellow canal road walker stopped to chat with me about her experience trying to pick some of these un-reachable, but oh so desirable apricots. She said wading into the canal was not a good choice. Apparently, she got stuck in the mud at the bottom of the canal and decided it was just not worth it.

All the way home, I discovered that I indeed, wanted them badly enough to find a way. The words of my BSCI partner Janean Hall, came to me – “What’s another way?” The minute I walked in the door, I told my husband Roger about my plan. I would put a plank over the canal, walk out onto it and reap my rewards. He looked at me as if to say, “You’re an idiot” but just smiled and said that he did not think I could heave a board all the way to the other side. We might be able to use the extension ladder, he suggested! That is what we will do. So we loaded up the ladder and off to the canal we went. My daughter, 9 months pregnant and her daughter 4 were amused to say the least, and decided to join us on this adventure.

Roger surveyed the situation and decided that the ladder would not work either. He suggested that the only way would be a raft. A ha! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? A float tube would do just fine. So back to the house we hurried as if someone else would claim our prize before we could return. But alas, success! My granddaughter Baylee and I floated down the canal until we reached the apricot tree. I grabbed a limb and we started picking apricots by the armloads – we would fill our bags and they would reel us back to the shore to offload our take and back again for more. What fun!

Many of our neighborhood friends have mentioned how they, too admired the apricots. And one said he wondered what had happened to them. One day they were there and the next day they were gone. Hmm, like magic – yeah right!

In life, whatever ‘it’ is for you, you must want it badly enough to do those things that others are not willing to do. You must be willing find another way when your first, second and third attempts fail. It takes courage, creativity and sometimes a little insanity to reach further, dream bigger and aspire higher in order to reap life’s greatest rewards. And sometimes it is not what we are thinking. The true reward here was not really the apricots – it was having bread and jam on the porch swing.

Lessons Learned?

 

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Dug, our adventurous, 10-month pup met his first porcupine. Not only did they meet, but they scrambled, tangled and ran in and out of the bushes over and over again.  Not sure why, but he did not seem to grasp the simple principle that all actions have consequences and some of them hurt! He kept going back and back and back. Finally, my daughter and son in law were able to pull him away from the porcupine. With quills in his paws, his mouth and nose, off we went to the nearest country vet. With sedation, a few hours and of course, $200 all is well. But lesson learned? We don’t think so.

Truth is, I can relate. Perhaps you can too. From time to time, I find myself doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Isn’t that Einstein’s definition of insanity? Some of us are just slow learners, I guess. Unfortunately, the results and outcomes of many of our decisions are beyond our “here and now.” They are in the future far enough that we fail to make the connection.

I do wonder, however if timing doesn’t have something to do with it. We seek for instant gratification without considering the connection our actions have to our long term outcomes. We love to eat things that are not good for us, often without thinking of the consequences. Maybe, if we gained weight instantly! Or got sick immediately, we would be less likely to  make that choice again. Sometimes we buy things we just have to have in that moment and if we can’t afford it, we charge it! Ignoring that the time will come when we need to pay the fiddler. If the bill was due the next day, would we make that same choice?

I would like to think that I would do better if my choices had immediate consequences. You know, like chase a porcupine get shot with painful quills.

On a good day, I get it. I make smart choices.  Other days, well, I am just a Dug.