Dec 2, 2020
Follow a road going nowhere
You Might Just Find the Fountain of Youth
“The Fountain of Youth is Closer than You Think.” That is the title of a chapter I wrote for the ABCs of Awesome Living, a book project in which I took part. And the fact that the publisher will release it in the next few days is no coincidence. Recent events have convinced me of it!
I’ve been following the same route for my morning walk for over a year now, but I took a slight detour down a street with no outlet on Sunday. Usually, when I see a road with a dead-end sign, I avoid going down it, because…well, what’s the point? I don’t want to waste time and have to backtrack. But Sunday was different.
We’d experienced three solid days and nights of torrential rains, so when I walked toward the dead-end street and heard the roaring sound of raging water, I wanted to see the stream that had been filled to overflowing by such dreary weather. My intuition, with a nudge from my curiosity, drew me down that road so I could see it for myself.
As I walked further from the main road, the sound got louder and louder. Anxious to put an image with the beautiful sound, my steps quickened. As I rounded the bend, joy overtook my curiosity when a crush of water cascading over the rocks of a mountainside greeted me — whoosh whoosh whoosh.
I stood there dazzled and drank in the splendor of the gushing waterfall. Gratitude for the rain that had energized this cataract filled my spirit. I was so thankful I’d listen to my intuition to discover this gem after all this time. I felt like a giddy child; could this be the fountain of youth of which I wrote about?
I learned something on Sunday. It’s not always pointless to follow a road to nowhere. Dead end road signs might warn us that we’ll have to backtrack and lose some time in the process, but they don’t always tell us the whole story.
When I first moved to France, I saw everything with curious eyes. Life here hadn’t become routine. I spent more time exploring and following roads to nowhere because I was curious. But time and habit can block this curiosity and zest for life. Don’t let it!
Take time to look at your surroundings or situation anew and ask yourself, “What am I curious about here? What am I dying to learn about this?” And then take the dead-end street or the road less traveled. It’s not always pointless to take a road going nowhere!
