What roadworks taught me about embracing change
This is a new country road discovered only because roadworks forced me to try new routes.
Roadworks might be necessary, but they are infuriatingly, frustrating. It’s not just the delays, and the traffic, and the being late wherever you need to go. Over the past months leaving the house to go anywhere has been an… erm… adventure: you never know which road will be closed, which will be re-opened, and where the traffic lies lurking.
The second you get used to a ‘new’ route, one of the roads on that route is closed. And there you go again: you have to figure out a new one unless the old one is re-open (which is not always the case).
For many weeks this was a source of frustration and stress: because mad mornings were turned madder for having to leave earlier to figure out the next best way to work, school, or wherever.
I was forced to take long detours that lasted 30 minutes for a drive that would otherwise last 10. But then, one day, something happened that broadened my perspective.
I was stuck in traffic, when I remembered a country road I could take to cut across the main roads I was using. I realised that, had the roadworks not forced me towards that winding road months earlier, I would not have known about it. Because I like to stay on main roads. I like the safe, known path.
That day - while steering my car through that traffic-less, one-way country road with a smug smile on my face - I realised that, even though I might not like change – to my usual routes and in life in general – change teaches you.
Change forces you to learn and to broaden your perspective. To steer off the safer path. It kicks you out of your comfort zone – sometimes into a complete discomfort zone. But there is something there: a lesson, a message or a perspective to be absorbed.
Like it or not. It is up to you to take what you need and internalise it and use it for direction. Because even in life, sometimes the safer path comes with unforeseeable disruptions.
For the record, I still hate roadworks.
But I’m starting to tolerate change a bit more.
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