Guided on the Path

Apparently I only ever feel inspired enough to write in my blog when I visit a National Park. About a year ago, I visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, and just last week I went down to Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks. I promise that lots of other notable things have happened in the past twelve months despite my lack of writing, and I hope to be a bit better at writing during the next twelve months...

Anyway, it really is true that a lot has happened in the past year. I am entering peak millennial status as "young adult." That's the phrase used to describe someone who is definitely old enough to start acting like an adult, but definitely does not feel like they are old enough to start acting like an adult (which describes me well). In about seven months, I will be done with college and free to do adult things like get a job, move somewhere new, mow the lawn, watch cable news, talk about finances, etc. All of that sounds nice, but I'm kind of scared by the impending uncertainty and the decisions that have to go along with it. Living the relatively structured day-to-day college life doesn't seem so bad.

If nothing else, I've spent a good amount of time in the past year exploring new places (typical millennial behavior), from Bruges, Belgium to Austin, Texas and many locations in between. As mentioned, last weekend I visited a few National Parks closer to home. I'd already been to both previously, but of course I was again struck by their natural beauty. At Capitol Reef, we hiked on the "Frying Pan" trail (we never figured out where the name came from), and the views along the way were incredible.

For a while, I was leading our little group down the trail, and it took quite a bit of concentration to make sure we were sticking to the path. The landscape for most of the hike was pretty similar to what you can see in the picture above, without a lot of immediate or unique landmarks, which meant that the path had to be marked by other means. As is common in many national parks, the Frying Pan trail was marked by cairns, or little stacks of rocks that stand up above everything else. Park rangers make these little stacks and return to the trails frequently to make sure that they are in good condition. As long as you keep going toward the next cairn, you'll be on the right path. It's almost like a connect-the-dots picture laid out over the landscape, with each connection guiding you along the trail.

As we were walking along the trail, it seemed like every time we would get to a cairn, the next one wasn't immediately in sight. Usually we could make a quick guess about which way to go and after a few steps the next cairn would come into view, having been previously hidden around a boulder or tree. Occasionally, our initial guess would be off and we'd have to look around to figure out which way the path really went. Finding the path was never too difficult, but losing focus for even just a few steps often led to temporary confusion.

At the start of the weekend, we set out with the hope of experiencing the natural beauty of two National Parks. At each park, we planned out which paths and trails to take to maximize the quality of our time there. Of course, to meet our goal of seeing the natural beauty around us, we had to walk, following the cairns and other trail-markers along our way. Just planning the trip, or thinking about it, or even driving down wasn't enough; we actually had to get up and walk step by step along the paths. No single step was particularly exciting (except for a few slips on icy surfaces), and few cairns seemed to offer a significantly better view than the last, but the accumulation of each step along the way led us to fulfill our hope of experiencing these two parks.

In the mind's eye, we tend to paint life with broad strokes, forming a big picture view of it all. We are driven by big goals and focused on large pursuits, like graduating from college, earning a promotion, getting married, making some difference in the world, etc. In a sense, we want to experience the beauty of life. With the best of intentions, we make mental images of what we hope life will look like in five years, ten years, and beyond. But what do we do when we aren't sure what comes next? What happens when we get to a cairn and can't see the next one? Worse yet, what happens when we've taken a few steps off of the path?

It is important to have overarching goals and dreams that inspire and motivate us, but we should not overlook the little steps along the way. Sometimes we focus so much on the big picture that we never get around to figuring out the path that gets us there, because the end result just seems too far away. For several years, I've been looking towards the big goal of graduating with a Mechanical Engineering degree, but now that I'm about to do that, I feel so much uncertainty about what comes next. I certainly do not regret all the little steps that have led me along thus far, and I'm excited to reach a "big picture" goal, but I also have no idea what direction I should go next. I'm at a cairn, and stepping forward to look for the next one sounds quite scary.

In a commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs observed, "You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." We cannot always see the next dot in our path, and we usually cannot see the big picture that our path is creating, but we can look back and see the image that our life has formed thus far. We must learn to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7), and as we do so, "we will know that the Master Artist had a plan for those random dots all along. We will see that He has amplified our talents, prepared opportunities, and introduced us to possibilities far more glorious than we ever could have imagined or accomplished on our own" (The Adventure of Mortality, Uchtdorf, Jan 18).

Take courage and take the next step forward in your life. Even if that step only takes you through the next hour, or day, or week of your life, go forward. After that step, take another step. As you progress, step by step, you'll see the cairns along your way, placed by your Divine Creator to guide you to reach the full potential He has set out for you. If we step off the path, we can always repent and return to God, thanks to our Savior, Jesus Christ. The big picture might be blurred from your view or seem too distant to reach, but by trusting in God, you will have the ability to walk forward step by step. 

I'm trying to figure out for myself which steps to take, and I'm slowly moving along, trusting that God is at the helm and is guiding me along. When I look back, I'm happy with the journey that my life has taken so far. When I look forward, I'm not sure where the path will lead, but I know that I'll be on the right path if I trust in God with each step. After all, I know that the next cairn is always just right around the corner.