Three people on a hill

This morning I encountered a peculiar situation. It wasn’t peculiar to the other two people, but it was to me because I thought about it too much.

There’s a hill I always have to go up whenever I want to go to my college campus– it’s an Arkansas thing. To remedy the long, exhausting trip going up and down, I bring an electric scooter I was given as a gift. It makes going up and down the hill pleasurable. As I was going up the hill on my scooter, I noticed two people on the same path. One person was walking up the hill and another was going down. With my scooter, I easily caught up to them and passed them on my way to campus. The odd part here is that despite the long path (about a 15-20 minute walk), we all passed each other at the exact same time. As I passed the person walking up the hill, I also passed the person walking down the hill. To them, it might not have seemed like a big deal, but to me, it felt like it was a movie where time slowed down and forced the audience to pay attention from one person’s life to another person’s. After we all passed each other, I felt strange. I can’t describe it well in words, but it almost felt like an epiphany. Perhaps I’m overthinking but let me explain it:

In life, there are three methods people will take when going on the same path. One person will inevitably want to go up to reach their desired location; this person will have to take their time to get there because all they have is their legs, but at least they can choose to walk or run. Another person will have to go down to return to where they started; this person will also have to take their time. And the last person has it the luckiest and can go back and forth the path in one-fourth the time because he has a method that is inaccessible to most. This morning I was the lucky person. I still am and I shouldn’t forget that. We will encounter similar situations like this throughout our lives. And we won’t always be the luckiest person out of the three– there will be a time where I don’t have my scooter and someone else will have one. We will each be in a situation where we have to pick a role that we don’t like but it’s necessary if we want to reach our destination. This moment just happened to be my lucky one.

That was my though process as I passed the two on the hill. It’s moments like these that remind me why I started a blog because I wanted to document the little things in life that, if paid enough attention, can be extremely insightful. I couldn’t be selfish and keep them all to myself, so I wanted to share them with the rest of the world. I’m fine if most won’t get to see this, though I wish they did. As long as I made a single person’s life a little better, I succeeded.

TAKEAWAY: We will go through various roles in life, it’s your job to perform to the best of your abilities.

Here’s my inspiration for the day.