life lessons from small things

Life Lessons From Simple Things

Sometimes you can derive life lessons from the simplest things. You just need to open your eyes and ears and especially your brain to make the connection.

Here is my life lesson I learned from Starbucks. Well maybe not Starbucks but from my travels to and from Starbucks.

While exiting the parking lot at Starbucks, I use to fall into a small pothole.

Now the thing about potholes, is that the hole wasn't always a hole, in actuality it was no different than the rest of the road, but when enough people drive over the same spot, and that particular spot has a weakness, a depression and eventually a hole will emerge, and if unchecked, the hole will get bigger and bigger.

Now I kept hitting the hole day after day and never thought to change my path to avoid the hole until I hit it and I kept damning myself for not having the forethought to intentionally miss it.

One day I missed it! HOORAY! And I thought to myself, I didn't create that pothole by myself, and that means I am not the only person who ran into that weakness in the road. I'm not alone and I am not the only person who falls, but I can choose to miss that pit in the road.

For months I proudly altered my route and missed the hole, constantly thinking how many people continue to hit it...

One day, much later, I noticed that the hole had been patched! The hole finally got large enough, because enough people fell in to the hole, that the call was made to fix that hole.

Now I didn't have to think about the hole and blissfully went my way to and fro, until one day, BUMP! I fell into the once patched hole. UGHH! Funny how old weaknesses just pop back up. That weak spot, although patched was still a potential problem, and many still followed their old patterns and the patched hole became a depression and then once again a hole. I stopped paying attention and fell in the same hole that I thought I had overcome, and so did a lot of other people.

What can we take from this life lesson? Weakness is common and a lot of people have the same ones. Mine may not be yours, but you can guarantee that you have a pothole in your life and you are not alone. We also constantly need to keep our weaknesses into check, so we don't repeat our lessons. And if you do fall, you will not be alone.