The Paths We Take

This week's quotation, by Marion Gitzel, reads, "Every path that you take is also a footbridge on which you stand."

It took me a while to work out what she was getting at, but I think she means that each choice we make leads to consequences, that our choices lead us into situations where we have to make other choices.

Which reminded me of a service I did a few years ago, about living in the moment, inspired by a reading from Wayne Muller, who wrote, "What is the next right thing for us to do? Where in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction?"

I don't know about you, but to me, this seems to be such a simple approach to life, much less stressful than being worried about a thousand possible alternatives. You just concentrate on the Next Right Thing - give that your time and attention, and then go on to the next one.

But I was, and am, very conscious that "simple" does not mean the same as "easy". This moment by moment approach to our lives *is* elegantly beautiful in its simplicity, but it is by no means easy to do. Because it means that we have to be conscious, awake, moment by moment, so that we make our many small choices with awareness, rather than blindly, depending on how we are feeling at the time. Actively considering each choice, moment by moment actually sounds like quite hard work. 

But it is the most important work in the world.

If we look at our lives, really examine them, we can see that they *are* the result of all the choices we have made, in the past days and months and years (and, I guess, the choices the powers that be have made on our behalf). It is a gradual, moment by moment, process. Muller likens it to a mountain stream, and like the stream, we "know nothing of what is ahead, [are] not conscious of planning for the future. [We] simply follow the path of least resistance, motivated by gravity. ... The only choice we make - what is the next right thing to do - responds to a similarly vital inner gravity, an invisible thread that shapes our life, as our life meets the world."

This is the footbridge on which each one of us, moment by moment, stands. The results of this process have shaped our lives. All of us are where we are now, today, because of our past choices. And where we end up, tomorrow and the next day, will depend on the choices we make today.