Perhaps, we can think of it this way.

You are a mouse….. in a maze.  Yes.  A little door opened…. you were pushed through that wee opening…. and the door shut behind you.  Surrounding you now, are nothing but white walls.  From where your standing, the direction is not clear.  It may seem daunting, or even frightening.

What should you do mouse?  You sniff.  That comes naturally to you.  Ahhhh.  What is that?  Sharp White Vermont Cheddar Cheese?    Could be Velveeta.  Either way…..YUM.  You thinks you is hungry.   And you say to yourself, I will go in the direction of that smell.

So many halls are before you.  So many doors.  So many directions.  Which is the way?  You don’t know mouse.  But you step out.

At first it goes well.  Walking through these white passage ways.  And then.  Bam.  A wall blocks your process, and your progress.  There is no way around.  It proves much too steep to climb over.  So.  Now what?  You catch a whisper of that cheesy motivation.  Faintly.  So what do you do mouse?

Without much of a choice, you retrace your steps, and try figure  out which hallway might be the open channel.  Again and again this happens.  Dead end. Back up. Start over. Dead end. Back up.   Start over. But the thing of it is, you don’t give up.  You continue to begin anew.  It is either that, or just sit there and starve.

Finally mouse, one turn needs to the next.  A right turn here, and a left turn there.  At last, the open door.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  And YOU….. you get the cheese.

That is how it is for us humans too, isn’t it.  Our paths aren’t exactly clear, but we DO have little hints about the direction we have to go.

And when something gets in the way of our intended progress, we back track just a bit.  We figure out where we went wrong, and we learn from it.  We go in another direction.  Until finally, we get there.  Easy Cheese.

The dog takes the cat… the cat takes the mouse… the mouse takes the cheese. Heigh-ho, the derry-o . . .

A Maze Zing.

“Don’t be afraid to be amazing” – Andy Offutt Irwin