I must have been very little, but I don't remember how little I was. All I remember was that I was on the balcony with my father, when a curious thought entered my brain, possibly at the sight of a line of black ants making their exodus from one end of the balcony to the other. The thought was of distance, and what the journey across the balcony was to the individual ant. I posed the question somewhat like this, "How long is one mile for an ant?" I figured, what seemed like a reasonable distance to a human, would be an unattainable feat to a species so small and that for that reason their notion of a mile had to be in proportion to their size – it couldn't possibly be the same mile human beings referred to.
My father, however, wiser than his infant-philosopher, promptly told me "A mile is a mile," and he went on to gently disprove my elaborate ideas regarding the plight of ants and other small creatures. It was almost too much for my tiny brain to fathom. It meant that for the ants on my balcony, this whole journey they were making which felt like a hundred miles, however long and tedious it was, was still only worth a few feet, easily measurable in inches – such a meager distance, in comparison to a "real" journey, miles and miles long.
It is curious that this evening as I sat with my sister in the park watching the sunset, the talk my father and I had had years ago on the balcony suddenly came to mind. I began to understand it better and see it in a whole new light, now that I was older and a little wiser. I realised – I am the ant in the analogy, if my father's words were pressed into the mould of one. I am the tiny creature to whom the shortest distance feels like the journey of a lifetime.
It all made sudden sense to me. Here I am, twenty-four years old, on the verge of a lot of uncertain changes, but presently at a point in which everything has dramatically evolved in to absolutely nothing. Where I spend whole entire days slouched in front of the TV watching something as intelligent as The Fabulous Life on Vh1 and where I get out of my pajamas only on occasion. Is this my journey? If so, where am I? And where am I headed?
It would be foolish to think I'm the only one thinking these thoughts. My guess is, there are plenty of highly successful forty five year olds who still find themselves on the (metaphorical) couch wondering where they're going and if life will cut them any slack.
Some of us sure feel like ants a lot of the time and it often seems unfair that life demands such a long distance of such small creatures as us. But the truth is this - the journey is both standard and unique all at once. Unique because you (and I) are, but standard because a mile is, after all, a mile, notwithstanding the strength of your inner person, or your bad experiences or fears. We will each end up in different places, but we still have to make that journey on our own, as epic as it may seem and often be.
My challenge to you this week is to keep walking, even though the distance will not always grow shorter and the scenery may not change for years. Keep walking till you know you have arrived.
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