Choosing What Path To Take Next

"I began what was to be the loneliest winter of my life, so far as human beings were concerned. I was struggling with the decision of what to do with myself. My problem was the variety of interests, all leading someday of course to writing, but not yet. I enjoyed too many employments."

Young and newly married, the woman describing this inner conflict had a full life yet to live. And in due season, critical doors to success would open propitiously. Some, seemingly without her even trying the handles.

Similar confusion runs deep within me at times. But a significant distinction exists: most of my allotted days have already been expended. So what happens next?

Recently retired, a friend's face wore his growing concern of not having enough to do. But for me, numerous choices breed difficult decisions. Simultaneously, however, diminishing reserves of time and energy constrain opportunities for mid-course corrections.

Consider an example.

Several years ago I began to write these newspaper columns, proving a point long suspected. There's no trick to churning out columns or book manuscripts or poems.

Poets lounge on every corner, and would-be authors choke the streets. How-to books proliferate. The challenge is not the writing--but the selling. And selling demands energy and expertise I don't have.

Thus my perpetual fork in the road: to do what I'd like or what I must. Or put another way, to drain the swamp or fight alligators. To pursue the important or the urgent.

In perusing my journal, conflicts of choice repeatedly surface. From a decade ago: "We have worked day and night for the last two weeks trying to get everything done. The house is still a wreck after remodeling, but things are going back together. I haven't been able to get paperwork for several weeks--no telling what's overdue. Tonight I must balance the checkbook and pay bills."

Probably without realizing the significance of her decision, the young woman reached a future-altering conclusion: "Something else lay ahead but I did not know what. While I waited I busied myself." Both the minute and the monumental she attacked with equal vigor, not knowing which would pay off. And because of rich experiences garnered on her journey, Pearl Buck became the first woman awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

But thousands of years before Pearl Buck, the writer of Ecclesiastics (9:10) had precisely mapped the path she ultimately pursued: "Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good."

So I scatter seed along diverse paths. This morning: finish this column. This afternoon: help son with algebra. Tomorrow: begin painting curtain rods and rings. Next semester: enroll in Spanish class. Much later: screw up courage to call hard-to-convince editors.

And who knows what seed will bear fruit, or when… if I busy myself with opportunities as God affords them to me.

Copyright 2003 James McAlister

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