Kay:
Hey Questers, and welcome! It’s Episode 98 – you’re here with Kay and Shi – and we’ve got a Helen Keller quote for you today. She says, “A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.”
Shi:
Okay..so not ONLY is it quippy, but it’s got a rhyme in it, it’s an excellent lesson, and you can’t help but see the irony of someone who is blind making an analogy about roads bending, and making the turns…and all of the things!
Kay:
I mean, this woman had a “can do” attitude her whole life. And, if you don’t know Helen Keller’s story, here’s a quick little brief for ya! She was born blind, deaf, and without the ability to speak.
Shi:
I actually think she got sick at like 18 months….I think she originally had her sight at birth, but then got sick and lost those things. And, was a bit lost in her way, until a teacher helped her breakthrough, and learn a type of sign language with her hands. And then she went on to get degrees, and write books, and become this very famous person in history.
Kay:
Yeah, it was really cool what she overcame! I mean, this was in the day when there weren’t hearing aids, there weren’t surgeries for blindness, and there wasn’t medicine to help her, at the time when all of these afflictions came upon her. And so, she really became an inspirational figure! And her ability to use an analogy of a road when she’d never physically seen a road, I think is pretty important, and a beautiful expression of something that we can use to grow.
Shi:
Well, and talk about somebody who could’ve had a major bend in their road, right? Like that could have been the END of the road for sure. But, luckily, she did get that teacher and she was able to break through, and then persevere. And yes, the teacher helped, but once she made the connections, Helen had to be the one to learn all the stuff, and earn the degrees, and write the books, and do all of the things. But, MAN – talk about a challenged road. Because, even now, even with our modern medicine, this is a difficult one. So, I mean, “bend in the road” is probably an understatement for someone’s story like Helen Keller. But, she says it’s not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn. So, now we’re talking about flexibility, adaptability, and making the best out of ANY situation, and really respecting that journey (no matter what’s been thrown at you), and flowing with it, rather than careening off the side.
Kay:
Well, the thing about a bend in the road is that, if you’re looking at a road and it bends to the left or to the right, you can’t see around the corner anymore. And so, you have no idea what’s on the other side of that. And, to pull from one of our dear Disney princess songs “Just Around The Riverbend,” Pocahontas says, that – in order to be safe – we lose our chance of ever knowing what’s around the Riverbend. Or, in other words, if you want to be safe, you can just stop your car….You can just not make the turn..And, you could just do nothing…. OR – you could keep your car going, (and maybe careen off a cliff)…BUT, if you sit in safety, you will (100% guaranteed) lose your chance of knowing what’s around the corner.
Shi:
I mean, you know we love that Pocahontas song, and we love this quote too because it’s kind of quippy and it also helps us to understand that if we don’t take the turn, (and IF we stay in that safe zone as Pocahontas tells us), then we will never know what’s around the riverbend, because that would be the END of the road for us. And so, making that turn into the unknown means that we have to carry the flame of faith that there WILL be something around the corner. Even if it’s a challenge…it will be something. And, ultimately, that’s what progresses us down the road. Roads were built to be traveled, not to be stuck on the side of!
Kay:
Yup. Even if you miss the turn completely, you might just be on a detour! You never know. You could be driving down the highway of life and suddenly the road bends and you’re like, “I missed the exit” or, “I didn’t take the correct turn.” But, you guys all know how that story ends up. You get the next taxi, or you get off and you go through the light, you turn around, and you get right back on the freeway, go the opposite direction, and then you find your exit again! So it could have just been a detour and not necessarily the end!
Shi:
Many of you know that John Maxwell is a mentor of ours. And that we are the faculty for his marketing department, and the John Maxwell team. And, John’s been doing a series right now, during the pandemic, called “Leading Through Crisis”. And, just a couple of weeks ago, he was talking about the fact that life is full of detours and that that’s how it’s supposed to be. And that you are on the road, but you don’t know where the detours are gonna take you. It’s not a straight road and it’s definitely not a short road! And, he said, (in his sweet, old preacher type of way), “You know…looking back at my life again, I would pick the detour route every time, because that’s where the growth is.”
Kay:
That’s beautiful! And isn’t it in the detours, (when we are open to detours, and not angry about them), that we seem to find little delights and beauty along the way? I mean, just over the summer, my husband and I got totally lost in the woods for two hours, and drove and drove and drove to search for this hike that we could never find. But, we ended up having a delightful time because it’s really about who you choose to be inside the car, and whether you’re going to keep going on that road! And so, Helen Keller tells us, “The bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn.” And, today’s QUESTion is: Are there any roads that you might have fallen off of (or maybe you just pulled your car off to the side), that you wish you were still on? What would it take for you to get around that next bend, and maybe even make it onto a highway on that road? You don’t even have to take action toward it today! Just identify what it would take and ask yourself this question!
Shi:
Happy questing!
