We recently spent a long weekend on the lovely South Australian Yorke Peninsula driving open country roads surveying the ample scenery.
One particular stretch took us along Hundred Line Road, which effectively formed a dead straight line from the north coast of the foot to the south of the peninsula. Every now and then as we came over a crest of a hill you see the road travelling off into the distance as far as the eye could see, not deviating an inch.
The sight instilled in me a strange feeling of despair which I thought was odd. It sparked off an interesting conversation with my wife, for whom the long straight road gave a feeling of comfort, and we dug deeper to try and understand what these feeling might mean.
Coming over the crest of a hill and seeing a long straight road disappearing into the distance, never deviating from that straight path, to me meant the following things…
- I’d been quite happy focussing on what was directly in front of me with the assumption where I was heading probably wasn’t far around the corner and was shocked to see I still had so far still to go.
- Not only was it still a long way off, there is going to be very little change between here and that far away distance point – and there’s no guarantee that what I can see is even the end.
- I feel resigned to just having to keep moving forward and wade on through, impatient to reach my destination
Compare that to my wife who in contrast looked upon that long straight road as…
- A comfort. Often unsure if she is on the right path without obvious cues to indicate where we are headed, being able to see as far into the distance meant knowing we are on the right path and destined to get there as long as we keep on this path.
- There is nothing left to worry about now so we can just sit back and enjoy the journey, the destination will get to us soon enough.
It seemed to me that our feelings towards this long stretch of road to gave an interesting insight into how we approach to life’s goals and trials.
On that drive, the long straight road was a metaphor for life, and my wife definately has the better way of approaching things as far as I can tell.
