Life Demands a Pencil

My son asked me one of those questions yesterday that makes many parents cringe.  Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter; that's the easy question! No, no, no. The question was if George is six feet tall and he is standing five feet from a thirty foot lamppost, how long is George's shadow? Good grief!

I started out by drawing the picture, created a formula and came up with an answer. I then did the problem a different way and got the same answer.  Lastly, I printed out a graph so I could re-draw the scenario and see if my answer was realistic. It was (thank goodness!).  Graphs are, by definition, "a diagram representing a system of connections or interrelations among two or more things by a number of distinctive dots, lines, bars, etc."  The lines in a graph are not random.  There is an x-axis and a y-axis and many lines running perpendicular to each other at evenly placed points.  Because nothing is random in a graph, the points, once plotted, offer a clear picture, or answer.

Life, however, is not like that. We cannot graph out our life on paper because there is a randomness to life that points and lines do not fit into.  We can graph out goals and intentions and deadlines but that doesn't mean they are set in stone (or in pen) right where we put them.  Life demands a flow; a pencil, if you will, that has a rubbery eraser so we can stop and make changes as challenges arise.

"I always tell people that my life is in pencil; I have to keep an eraser in my hand because I could always get a call that could change everything." -Linda Gray


Oscar Wilde wrote, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” 

The "existers" stay on the plotted graph line. Those who live are not afraid to venture off the graph. Which are you?

Are you graphically structured or can you flow up and down on the parabolas of life without fear?

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."— Confucius

The graph is complicated. Forget the graph; it is not a map depicting your path. Your heart depicts your path and if you are listening to your heart, then there is no fear.

"My journey began with a single pencil. While traveling through India in 2006, I asked a boy begging on the streets, 'If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?' and he answered me with two words: 'A pencil.' Luckily, I had one in my pocket, and in the second it took me to give it to him, a defining dream was born." Author Adam Braun

Are you ready to let your heart define yours?

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