On our Mississippi River trip I encountered a unique bike trail design.
The trail was constructed on top of the levees. Great idea, huh? Nice and level, no traffic, you could just cycle along and gaze at the river, the boats. It was great, except every couple of miles there was a break in the levee for a service road. So you had to descend a short hill, cross the road, and climb back up the other side. No big deal.
Imagine my surprise after a few iterations of this process when I rolled over one of those hills and encountered a “dismount gate,” a narrow iron gate designed to force cyclists to dismount. Apparently riders were blasting across the roads and causing accidents.
Problem–by the time I saw the gate it was too late to stop. I was trapped, my 3-wheel bike wouldn’t fit through the opening, and I couldn’t dismount.
A kind cyclist stopped, spent about 15 minutes extricating me from my dilemma, and informed me that several similar intersections awaited. So…should I stick to my plan or give up and try something different?
Winners give up all the time
Refusing to give up and staying on that path would have been a dumb choice. But how often do we follow the plan simply because it’s there? How often do we stay with something because we started it and we “know” we’re not supposed to give up?
I knew kids who played a sport, or an instrument, or who followed an academic track they didn’t enjoy because they started when they were young. If you asked, they’d say they felt like they would waste all that time and effort if they gave up.
It’s called chasing sunk costs. Doesn’t make sense in business, or in life.
I’m thinking about this because of what I wrote a few days ago. Life is short. Too short, I think, to follow a path just because I followed it before.
Jesus seems to offer a different sort of guidance. He tells His followers to give up lots of stuff, including long-held religious, cultural, and national traditions.
But He offers a few simple principles to which we’re to cling tightly. Things like faith, hope, love, forgiveness, justice, grace…these we’re supposed to seek and never, ever give up.
Want to follow a dream? Stand firm on the core principles.
The rest? Develop the wisdom to become an effective quitter.
Or…keep running into the same gates.