Life as an Obstacle Course

How Many (Rivers to Cross) - Luba

How does that old saying go - You'll never understand your fellow man until you've walked a mile in his shoes...With each obstacle I come up against that I don't think I can scale on my own, I feel like I want to kick off my shoes for just a while and walk in yours. I get that everyone (or most people) have walls  or other setbacks in their life, but sometimes it is just too much for one person. 

Life reminds me of a obstacle course. Most often we are making our way from one event to another. We alone get to decide whether we are going to run blindly without stopping to look at the scenery or saunter casually smelling the flowers along the way. More often then not it is a combination of both and something in between. Although we all get to a certain point in our lives where time seems to have passed so quickly that we feel like we went through it at a dead run. But there are times where we must jump through the hoops - so to speak - so that we may grow and learn. Many of us have the same tests to accomplish as part of the journey of life - school, relationships, career - but some have more ladders to climb and walls to scale. And I swear that sometimes that damn wall is greased to make it damn near impossible to surmount.

The Tunnel: Of course, birth was the wiggling through the tunnel :) Don't know how hard I found that event, but I was successful. That is a good start for most of us. Not a lot of thought process necessary thankfully and a lot of celebration upon completion. 

The Tire Agility Test: I see this event as similar to our youth. There is a real knack to navigating this successfully without falling on our face. It is the dance that teaches us the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. But it is about the balance of choices as well, between family and friends, between school work and play. If we can step through as many tires on the left as on the right, we will have good balance in our lives. I think some people never learn the fine art of running through tires because their feet like their egos are too big to navigate them. They spend their lives stepping on people instead of dancing with them. 

The Balance Beam: Contrary to popular belief, it is okay to fall off the balance beam at least once if not more. This piece of equipment is all about relationships and that ever so intricate dance that we must do. It is perfectly acceptable to have a spotter/helper to walk along beside you to catch you if you fall but you need to learn how to be successful on your own up there on that narrow walkway. If you can't be successful in your own right, you will fail as a partnership. As we are learning in our immature teenage years, we often fall off when we have not chosen the correct mate to be our spotter. Getting back on is the key. It seems that in this day and age, many of us are encountering numerous balance beams through the course of our lives. 

The Rope: This is much like our career experiences. Every knot that helps us scale higher is a new challenge, new opportunity, new responsibility. Close to the ground, it isn't too hard to hang on and there are not too many demands made of us. As you ascend it gets harder to hold on and our grip is a little less secure as the competition swings our rope and the stability of our youth is gone. Sometimes we must get creative to find new ways to hang on - or drop and start again. That is another thing that is becoming quite common in this generation. Good or bad, depends on the person affected I suppose. 

The Ladder: We use the ladder to climb up and over setbacks in our path. The equipment we are provided may be the flimsy rope version or the more stable wood or metal type, or a combination of both. Essentially, if we have a support system in place we have the sturdier option - on our own, we are struggling with the insecurity of the rope. The ladder is placed before us in varying elevations. 

What we consider a step stool stool is a tiny obstacle in our life journey. Using the car as an example, this might be the day that your once reliable transportation is not and you must find another means to your end for the day. If you are on the rope ladder, you might not have another option like family to reach out to. A typical 6' household ladder has the stability to protect you and let's say your car is decommissioned waiting for parts to arrive but within a week you'll be back to normal. The ones on the rope ladder  are swinging indefinitely but will make their way with time - but with no guarantee how long you'll be left stranded. Then there is the extension ladder, much higher and a lot scarier. This could be compared to a collision and on that stable ladder we are safer and more protected, there is something secure to hold on to or waiting arms to help us back on our feet. Swinging on the that rope ladder when we get to the top, we fall alone and usually fall hard. Getting back up is more difficult.

The ladder is probably the most dangerous piece of equipment. We all have ladders in our path - it is the height and the construction and of course the sheer numbers of them that differentiate us. Of course never forget that here is an added danger of the foot slipping off the rung (consider that personal injury) and it is much easier to lose our footing of course on the rope ladder. 

The Crawl Under the Barrier: In the obstacle course, the barrier under which we crawl is often a webbing of intertwined ropes. As we wiggle our way through, we are exposed for all to see how we are doing and usually not our best side I might add. These are the times of our insecurity, where we want to crawl away and hide but we cannot. The best we can hope for it to come out the other side and find some sunshine, ever though we may be covered in mud from the journey. Not every one has experienced this event nor will they ever in their life time.

The Tire Swing: This is another event that is not placed in front of everyone to experience. It is the solitary existence. The tire is close enough to the ground that you can get into it alone, and manipulate the movement. In times of confusion it spins in circles. In peace and joy, the back and forth motion like rocking will soothe. In times of contemplation the wind to take it at will. It is a dance you do alone with the added benefit of being partially hidden from view with the size of the tire. It has always been easier to dance alone when it is harder to be seen. 

The Wall: Like the ladder, this apparatus comes in different heights for different folks with the added option of a helper rope for some, making the scaling of the wall much easier. Unlike ladders, walls have no exact footing there is no right and wrong path and the potential to slip is greater. The wall is terrifying - we cannot look at it and think "one step at a time to achieve success." On the way up we have nothing to hold onto and often must make a run for it and hope we reach the top before we begin to slide. Many a time, we can be knocked back down if we don't have enough of a grip onto the top ledge. Consider the wall like a faceless corporation that you have come up against. Just barely hanging on, they step on your fingers like so much hope and down you go again. And sometimes it doesn't matter how many times you get to the top, you can almost see the other side - but hope and faith alone won't keep you stable and give you the nudge you need to get over and not look back. The monster at the top is just waiting for you to relax ever so briefly before knocking you down again. 

Sometimes it is just easier to stay off the wall and look around to see the other side using the safety and security of the wall to protect you. Or build a doorway in the seemingly impenetrable facade and only let those with the right credentials in. Sometimes the wall, it's height, it's strength, it's frequency is just too much. We can't dismantle it, we can't overcome it, we can't bend it...and the more we hit it, the more we hurt.

The difficulty of the obstacle course we encounter in our life is random. It is not dependent on our gender, heritage, hair colour or financial status. Obstacles may be more frequent the longer we live but the difficulty of accomplishment does not necessarily increase with time. Consider losing a spouse to death as a household ladder, losing a child to death an extension ladder. Personally, I sometimes feel like I had a lot of obstacles that were hard to overcome very early in life. Raising my children alone was much like a sprint around the course, encountering hoops that I had to jump through and hurdles that I could overcome with perseverance and sometimes an extra run at it. But that damn wall that I alone built to protect myself when there was no one left to help me through the obstacles fell on me when the corporate monster (read Dufferin-Peel Catholic Board of Education) not only knocked me down but proceeded to throw the bricks at me! I am not alone on this side of the wall. I am learning to live with the wall and even peek around it now and then. I was happy with the wall being there before - I had it decorated so nice, I was comfortable and happy. I knew that I didn't have to finish the race around the track to be self-fulfilled and happy. Sometimes we need to make our own course. I believed in myself and that was enough for many years. All I want now is what I've earned and what I am entitled to without prejudice, further harassment and discrimination because of the obstacles I faced.