The story is told of a man on a walking holiday in Ireland. After several hours he finally had to concede that he was completely and utterly lost. As he continued on his way he met a farmer, “Excuse me sir!” he said, “I’m trying to get to Limerick, can you tell me how to get there?”
“I’m sorry,” replied the farmer, “you can’t get there from here….”
Sometimes life feels as though we’ve taken a wrong turn; the somewhere we want to get to continually eludes us. Our response is hopefully not to settle down and accept a negative answer but rather to push on, “How do I get to somewhere from where I can get to where I want to be?”
Whatever the current scenery, whether at work, at home or life more generally, we all have to start where we are. In a previous job I found myself frequently uttering the words, “We are where we are.” There was no point fretting about the hole we were in, or the series of decisions that got us to that point. My task was not lament the poor judgement of those that dug the hole nor was it to make the hole bigger. My job was to solve the problem. I didn’t want to be in the hole, I didn’t put myself in the hole. But I was given the hole, asked to get out of it and fill it in.
When we can accept that we’re not where we want to be, we’re in a position to get to where we do want to be.
How do we define where we want to be? Often it starts with recognising the things around us we don’t like then identifying what we want to change. “I have this but I want that, “ or “I feel this, but I want to feel that.”
What if we’re like a walker with no map? Should we sit and wallow in the fact that we’re not where we want to be? No! Whilst it’s not exactly favourable, sometimes we just have to start where we are and make the best of it.
With eyes peeled and ear listening keenly we look for signs we’re heading in the correct direction adjusting our course accordingly. As we go we’ll discover the path to the place we can’t get to from here.
