Most people are familiar with that most venerable of vehicles, the Jeep. They’ve been around for many years and have gone through countless changes to the modern version we have today. However, the characteristics of the Jeep remain the same. It’s a versatile, relatively spartan, simple vehicle with great utility. It is capable of performing a number of tasks, all of them with competence. So, you may be saying, what in the world does this have to do with personal development?
Well, it occurs to me that life is much like a Jeep. Yes, that is in fact how my brain works! But think about it, and keep an open mind. Just as the Jeep is able to travel down the smooth roads, so can we choose the smoother road of life. That is, a path relatively free of obstacles and challenges. Or, like our four-wheel-drive friend, we can choose to take the slower, bumpier, more challenging route in life. This is the maybe the more adventurous way. We might get some scratches on our “body” along the way. We may spin our wheels trying to get traction. We might even roll over! But not to worry, as we are provided with adequate protection to ensure we aren’t seriously hurt in the process.
Both the smooth way and the rockier road are fine in our Jeep… I mean life. Neither is good or bad, or better than the other. They are simply different ways to get where we’re going.
Like the Jeep, we may sometimes find that we’re stuck in a rut. Here we have choices. We can just hit the gas and try to keep going straight. However, we’re likely to just spin our wheels, not make much forward progress, and use a lot of energy doing so. Or, we can work to get out of the rut. If we want to do this, we have to attempt to go in a different direction. We may even have to rock back and forth between two directions in order to gain enough momentum that will get us up and out of this rut. We have the choice and control over our Jeep… I mean, our life.
So, in so many ways, our life is like that Jeep. It may not be the fanciest or prettiest thing on the road, but it gets us where we need to go, and we can depend on it. Thus, it becomes an old friend which we can rely on to take us anywhere we want to go!
Today I am grateful for my Jeep… I mean, my life.
March 3, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Now that spring is almost officially here, I’m ready to get my Jeep off the highway and into some off-road terrain for 5 and 10 K walks.
Remember our Jeeps need seasonal tune-ups, too.