Encumbrances

We love our comfort and security. We crave our peace and quiet, our little cookie cutter communities, even our cars. I find that, especially as my friends and I begin to grow older, we tend to cling to those things in life witch offer security. We build tidy little walls of safety around our lives to keep the "bad" things out. Meanwhile, we become less tolerant of distractions and inconveniences. We feather our nests, regardless of their size or shape, and slowly pull back from the cutting edge of life. However, those little comforts we have so carefully laid in place can become encumbrances over time. Like a spider’s web, they begin to hold us in place a little too rigidly. Or like an anchor set deeply into the sand, they hold us so firmly that it becomes almost unthinkable to try and drag that anchor back up. In the course, therefore, of positioning ourselves "just right" we tend to become stuck. Some people wake up one day to discover they might like a different life altogether, but they soon find it far too difficult to change. There’s the mortgage, the cars, the kids, the retirement, the whatever. We get ourselves into a position where it seems virtually impossible to do something else. Yet, the world is full of something elses. What if we wanted to chase after a lifelong dream, become a missionary, change careers entirely? Rarely do folks leave some avenue of escape or much margin for error. I know that as I look at my own life and all of its possibilities, I want to leave an opening for some kind of a "plan B." Not a mid-life crisis or an abandoning of my responsibilities, but there are lots of plan B’s out there just waiting to be discovered. So as you plan your own life from day to day and year to year, leave a little margin for your plan B. You might not even know what it is, but it could just be lurking somewhere out there in your future. Let us, therefore, be wary of those tiny threads of security which can grow into encumbrances. The future is full of surprises ... at least we should all hope so.

Encumbrances
We surround ourselves with comforts
Bind ourselves with silver strings
Which entangle us like briars
With tiny thorns that catch and cling
We build hedges to encompass
The little world we call our own
Then, through the years, replace them
With higher walls of stone
Until we find ourselves, at last
Trapped within the web we've spun
Unable to escape the cage
We built to keep out everyone
So when we try to alter course
Or change the status quo
We are captured like the stubborn crab
Who simply won't go
Like fools, clinging to the wreckage
Though the ship will float no more
We simply tighten up our grasp
And are swept to the ocean floor
There comes a time to cut the anchor line
And leave it buried in the sand
To discard the extra cards we've held
And play the better hand
We must cast aside encumbrances
If we are to win the race
For no laurels will be earned by those
Who simply run in place
               By Frank Carpenter ©