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It's All Part of the Walk
By Emily Campbell
I enjoyed a beautiful walk through a nature preserve near my home one recent chilly spring morning, thanks to the confluence of 3 factors: Portland’s interminable spring rain finally ending, my full recovery from two back surgeries in the last few months, and suddenly finding myself between jobs thanks to a corporate restructure.
And as I walked, I was struck by the parallels with life in general: sometimes the path is paved and smooth, and you can see the next milestone clearly. But other times, impediments to your progress litter the trail—mud puddles, fallen trees, jutting roots tripping you up, the occasional owl swooping menacingly down over you—and you feel like packing it in and going home.
But that’s all part of the walk.
If you give up, you miss the little things, like a squirrel chomping on an acorn, a flower finally poking its petals out from the underbrush, or a baby deer grazing a few yards away. Relatively speaking, my own path has been pretty smoothly paved and relatively easy to navigate, but this last year has certainly thrown some impediments my way. However, I’m finally regaining my strength, I’m not in pain anymore, and I’m excited to see what my next career move will be. So, I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying this unexpected opportunity to rest, rejuvenate, and enjoy the little things.
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