This is not a picture I took but it is similar to what the conditions were like back in December of 1983 when my wife and I - five months pregnant at the time - decided to go ahead and head out on our planned trip to visit our families over the Christmas holiday.
When I say, "decided to go ahead", there was a lot of things to take into consideration before that decision was made. One, my wife was five months pregnant! Two, we were behind our time schedule due to someone putting carpet in the house AND it had begun snowing and snowing hard! As a matter of fact, by the time we made the decision to go ahead and go, there were at least 3-4 inches on the ground and a lot of it sticking to the roadways.
My brother and his wife lived about 30 miles from us and had also planned to make the trip but changed their mind due to the snow. They TRIED to get us to change our mind as well but we were DETERMINED to get away for the holiday season and go see family!
And we did. I don't remember the year model of the old Dodge truck we were in but it was old and it had lots of "air holes" in it that was letting in a LOT of cold, cold air as we traveled along the way.
If you are familiar with southwest Missouri/northwest Arkansas then you are likely familiar with the Boston Mountains. This highway is pretty dangerous on a GOOD day but, with snow all over the place, it was really treacherous as was evidenced by the many cars and "big rigs" that were off in the ditch.
But we kept going.
I don't remember if we had planned to spend the night at my wife's grandmother's house or not that night but, we ended up doing so due to a flat tire just outside of the town she lived in. The sun had already gone down and it was cold and icy. I walked my wife up the long driveway that we had the luck to be able to pull over in. I thought that I could at least get her in to where it was warm before I changed the tire. The kind folks let us in and, after talking a few minutes, we found that they knew my wife's grandmother and allowed my wife to call her (this was before cell phones). The gentleman told me to stay put with my wife and that he would change the tire. I tried to tell him I'd help but he insisted.
We finally made it to "Nany's" house for the evening but, upon getting up in the morning, we discovered that a lot of "frozen rain" had fallen and there was now ice EVERYWHERE. What did we do? We got in the truck and headed on down south so that we could still reach our destination.
We finally made it and ended up having to stay a week longer than planned due to ANOTHER ice storm that hit. When we finally left it was still fairly risky but we HAD to get on back.
Was it foolish? We'll talk about that thought in the next article but, notice these things:
1. We had set our plans on where we wanted to go.
2. Obstacles stood in the way (being behind on time; snow)
3. Others tried to tell us not to do it
4. WE WERE DETERMINED
5. We proceeded and it took a lot LONGER than we had planned!
6. There were delays (flat tire/spending the night/more ice)
7. WE WERE DETERMINED
8. We finally arrived at our destination!
Now friend, look over that list and KNOW that this will also happen to you when you decide to step out and proceed toward your goals and dreams.
That's not an "if", it's a "when". IT WILL HAPPEN.
Bottom line, "How bad do you want it?" Or, as the title to the podcast version of this asks, "Is It Worth It?".
Only YOU can answer that question and you WILL - sooner or later - have to answer that one.
In the next article we will answer the question (as best as I can) as to whether it was foolish or not to make that journey. I invite you back for that because it, too, will be something that you will have to answer along the way as you continue down your path to your goals and dreams.
Until then, be sure to...
"Make it an AWESOME day! (Who else is going to do it for you?)"
Mike
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