We have before us many alternatives, parallel paths that we can’t visit at the same time. We can’t be in two places at once. How many of us, would if we could, divide ourselves into a group, and send ourselves in different directions at once. But no person can be in more than one place at one time. So of course we are going to be missing out no matter what we do. What is the likelihood that we have always found the best path and even if we have found the best paths, other paths might have been vastly enjoyable.

Take for example something that happens that people consider negative, ,the job layoff. Much of the skill required for the job is probably something we had in our hand figuratively speaking. With so many other paths out there, all happening now, and with so many paths that can be created, why is this job loss so traumatic to our personal outlook? It almost correlated to the belief that the world is flat, and if you were to reach the end, you would fall off. Be we found out that this isn’t true. She is actually round and though seemingly flat, it turns out she isn’t. Mother earth is round. So the belief or assumption of an endpoint isn’t even true in reality. New pathways are opening. Let’s not hold on too tightly on any path, assuming it will bring us to the end of the world, where we will fall off the edge of the earth.

Have the waters of the Nile stopped flowing since ancient times? If we take the idea of a lack of new paths to it’s absurd conclusion, we couldn’t have any more air to breath, that path where there is even no more water, and things have ended.

But I can go to China, because I can breath there, there is water there, and the means are there to follow those paths.

Columbus might have believed the world had an edge, yet he still set upon a pathway that was unknown, unexplored from his vantage point. In the same way, we may really believe that this pathway was the end, but can we be like Columbus, and go ahead, without that knowledge, as to whether the earth was flat.

So let’s not just accept chugging along, maybe unhappily, on a path that we have been taking but not even enjoying. There might be smooth paths, exciting paths, interesting paths, paths with good camaraderie, golden paths, we could begin to follow, if we make the train.

Granted, it is easier to guide the train if it only has one track. You have heard the expression, “ He has a one track mind." But what if there are other tracks, should we take them, and where are we going if we do? What if our course hasn’t been fully chartered? As we move our boat forward, what if these waters have not been chartered by anyone, and have never even been touched? That new film I enjoyed, has never been done quite that way before. Look at even the Internet now, a path never touched before the 1990’s. Television, is a never traveled or touched path before this past century. Who won the basketball games in 1830? The baseball games in 1790? Every sequence of our imagination can bring forth newness. Paint that picture that has never been painted before. Visit the pristine waters of your own imagination. Let’s look beyond what is, to what can be.

The earth may be flat, we may fall off the edge, but let’s begin to explore, to take some chances on those paths that are leading to unknown outcomes, hidden opportunities, not yet seen. That safe path, in the end might be just as risky. Let’s not just factor in the art of sitting the harbor, but it is also the art of not exploring, of not setting those sails to the wind of possibility.

And let’s remember, some of those paths might not be there anymore. I should have gone when I had that ticket to ride. I may have crossed a bridge, but that bridge disappeared behind me. I can’t get back to 1999. There is no bridge back, no highway I can traverse, that will get me back to 1999. Even that last bridge to 2000 has disappeared behind me.

So, in that sense, the earth was flat, and as we go forwards, the edge of the earth is behind us, indeed as far as the past, the edge was there, the earth is flat, and we can’t go back. The Microsoft Word has the undo button. But if I dive into an ocean, I can’t undo this. Let us be conscious of the ways I can and can’t go back. The love affair did exist, I can’t go back and say it didn’t exist. We can’t go back and say there were never things such as planes, that there no big city in Rome. These things might disappear, but we can’t go back and say they never were. So we maybe are knocking on doors that aren’t there anymore. Let’s not try to swim in the ocean of those dead waters. If that pathway can’t be realized, let it go.