There's something different about the weather today. When i got into West Memphis last night, it was sweltering hot. This morning, there were nice cool raindrops from the sky. Good that it was cool, but bad that it may mean that i won't be able to leave West Memphis this morning if it continues to rain. But thankfully when i return outside after breakfast at the hotel bar, the skies held back. Once again I got the steed saddled up and off I went along I-55.
The change in the weather was so evident today. The hot humid air was replaced by cool refreshing dry breeze. Time passes so quickly while you are cool. Before I knew it I was at my halfway point of Skieston AR looking for the exit to I-57 which will take me into Illinois. The good thing about time breezing by (so to speak) is that when i finally reach my destination, i don't feel like i just got run over by a Dodge Ram. The bad thing is that it feels like i have missed everything in between.
What i didn't miss today however were the butterflies. It seems as if the cool weather has brought about a swarm of fluttering critters from Arkansas all the way to Greenville IL. Unfortunately, it seems fluttering butterflies have a tendency to to find their way out of the pastures and onto the blazing highways and into the way of hungry vehicles that would obliterate them in a blink of an eye. As soon as i began the journey today, i seem to have lost track of the number of butterflies that my helmet alone has squished. Every couple of miles i would hear a little "snap" accompanied by a small explosion of gooey liquid on my helmet shield. For every one that i see on my shield, there are at least 10 more that bombard by body in every place. It was actually quite disturbing at the end of the day when i shake off my jacket and powdery bits of wings and bug bits fall to the floor.
Gruesome as this might sound, squishing bugs with my body moving at 80 mph has actually taught me a lesson or 2 about life. You see, as much as it probably hurts the bug, it hurts me quite bad. It was astounding how much hurt a little butterfly can inflict when travelling at a high relative velocity. I have ran into butterflies while jogging in the park or whatever, but hardly even knew they were there. Even if i did see it, i would be able to avoid the bug pretty easily. But being pelted by the same feathery butterflies at 80 mph sometimes causes quite a "thwack" as if being shot at by paintball guns in winter.
Life is kinda like that.... When I am taking it slow, deliberate and composed, being careful of every step that I take, the little things don't trip me up. Even if i do see the stumbling block in my path ahead, I still have the ability to step over it. Worst comes to worst and i don't see it and actually trip up, the fall is still quite bearable. However the opposite is also true. The harder I run, the faster i go, the more stressed i get, it gets more and more difficult to see all the stumbling blocks in my path ahead. Tripping up suddenly becomes a very high possibility and when we do trip, the fall is immensely painful and difficult to recover from.
Perhaps my life is racing a long way too fast. So many times i plow headlong into a little stumbling block because I either don't see or i see it at the last sec and have no way to avoid it. But whatever the case, because i have been travelling so fast, it would be difficult to recover from a fall, even if it is caused by a seemingly small object.
"Be still and know that I am God". Psalm 46:10.
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