July 16, 2020. Today, on the Ice Age Trail, we walked our usual loop but in reverse. Typically, we walk the loop clockwise. There isn’t a specific way we are supposed to walk it…There are no signs pointing us one way or another. Simply, the first time we walked the loop, we went clockwise. And so, we continued to go clockwise.
Recently, we asked ourselves, why do we always go this one way? What would happen if we walked in the opposite direction?
It feels easy to go a certain way just because it’s the way we’ve always gone. But if we continue doing things just because it’s the way it’s always been, where does that leave us? On a personal level, we risk stunting our growth. On a societal level, equality most certainly will never come to fruition if we maintain status quo, just because it’s the way it’s always been. Some things are wonderful and need not change, but, that is not the case with all things.
It seems like such an irrelevant thing to walk the opposite direction on a path. Yet, it mattered to us. As we walked the path in reverse, we noticed things we’d never seen before (despite the fact that we have walked by them countless times).
The direction we chose to walk the loop is far less important to us than the questions we pondered as a family—Why do we always walk this way? What would happen if we didn’t?
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