Negotiate

          You get in your car to make a quick trip to the store;  you’ve got to pick up some milk and get back so the kids can have their breakfast before there off to school.  You’are pushing the speed limit and not coming to a full stop at stop signs.  You have to get back to get yourself ready for work.  You ask yourself, “Why is life such a hassle?”

           What you don’t notice are the bumps in the road because you don’t feel them.  You don’t take time to consider that you took the last turn a little too fast, and because of the inertia your automobile should have leaned in the opposite direction of the turn, but didn’t.  It never dawns on you that because the surface of the road is constantly changing, you should have to constantly move the steering wheel in order to drive in a straight line.

            While you sit there like King Solomon lambasting the circumstances of life and the incompetence of people; your automobile shocks, springs, ball joints, independent suspension and stabilizers are feeling a little unappreciated.

          The terrain of life must be negotiated.  We are not running laps on an asphalt track.  Your chassis was designed to expect and solve problems.    

           From a distance the lives of others may seem to run smoothly but everyone who will experience joy must learn that the terrain of life must be negotiated. 

Thesis:  The first sentence in the book, The Road less Traveled,

"Life is tough."