I read the other day you don’t know a person’s life until you have walked a mile in their shoes.  Then at the very least you are a mile away and you have got their shoes.
Somehow, I do not think that is taken the way it was meant.
I was thinking this morning how each of us in a sense walks a lonely road.  That is, it is our road.  Although there may be many who come along side and assist and there are those that can empathise with me, I walk the road myself.  It is me lifting my legs.  Sometimes it is easy peasy, and sometimes it is as hard as.  Either way it is up to me to walk my own road.
Often the easy thing to do would be to blame others for troubles I experience.  There can be some merit in that, but in reality the final decision is mine.  I can use others as an excuse, and it is very possible that others will agree with me.  But when I am alone and consider the situation, I am solely responsible for my reactions.
Others can make life difficult for me and I can make life difficult for me.  Often times I make life difficult for me unnecessarily.   Sometimes I have a winge and a woe is me session.  That seems to be a universal human response.   To me it is the next step that matters.  Will I stay down or rise above?  The choice is mine.  Others may or may not have contributed to where I am, but where I end up is up to me.
I am walking in my shoes.  Does my road end short of my goal or do I keep going despite the circumstances?  How does it all end?  I am the writer.  These shoes are good for a few miles yet.

It may sound totally weird, but it occurs to me this morning that it may be better to fall flat on my face earlier rather than later if I am wrong.
I was thinking about the calculations scientists make when sending a space craft up that aims for the moon.  If the calculations are one degree out, then one degree is a huge amount by the time the moon should be reached.
I am all for getting it right the first time without the angst of a woops moment later.  That is the aim and often it is achieved.  But not always.  But an error is never the end of my world unless I decide it is and give up.  But giving up is always counterproductive.  Sometimes an error occurs just before raging success.  But I will never know that if I give up.
Though in my mind an error early is the best thing apart from not making the error at all, that could happen to me.  I am a great one for acknowledging my humanity and ability to blow it.  It seems to me those who refuse to acknowledge their humanity and ability to blow it are a danger not just to themselves but to others also.
I am not saying that a leader should display weakness when going into battle.  That can have a negative effect on anyone under their command.  But when others know a leader does not pretend to be invincible, but displays total dedication to a cause, others rally and many fight together.
So in my mind getting it right early is desirable and may save many lives.  Realizing an error early does the same.  Even realizing an error later can still lead to correction.  It is not acknowledging an error that is a problem.  Self-deception is terminal and can be for others if I refuse to acknowledge and change a realized error.
When an error is realized the choice is egg on one person’s face or egg on many faces.  When the face with egg on it is mine (although unpleasant), many others have been spared and it is worth it.  Never pleasant - but worth it.

It is so easy to do.  I’ve done it, but I hope I have learned.
So often something is important to someone else and is not important to me.  I think to myself “why keep that?”  Yet so often there is a good reason to the keeper that is not necessarily understood by the one thinking something should be gotten rid of.
I am not thinking of things that are just horded for no apparent reason.  Sometimes a broom needs to go through what is being kept.  But I need to be careful that I am not saying something should go when the keeper has an attachment to the article that is perfectly reasonable.
I think of me collecting stamps.  There was a time when while working on them I realized I needed more sleeves.  I ended up spending around $500 on sleeves.  Someone not into stamps would have thought “what a waste” but then probably have spent the monies on something they were into that others do not understand and could have declared what a waste.
I like what Merril and I do with things we think need to go.  We put them in a pile and one says what they want to keep then the other goes though the remained determining if there is anything which they want to keep.  We know one another well enough to have a “no questions asked” policy.  We do not keep things just for the sake of it.
It took me a while to pick up on this. I have experienced it and seen it so often in families.  It is a real cause of friction.  What is saddest in my mind is when one dominates and gets rid of stuff that is not important to them but was important to the other.
There is no doubt in my mind it is a minefield area, but my thinking is I need to respect the wishes of another.  I may not understand but I need to always respect.