The Road Less Traveled

We spend our days complaining about how difficult our lives are and why it is that we always take the path less traveled.  It is because without complications to overcome, we do not appreciate the blessings in our life.  We need that sense of accomplishment, but is it because we don’t feel that we deserve for good things to happen to us, if we didn’t earn them?  I would like to think that isn’t the case, but as I have contemplated why I make things so difficult for myself, I believe it is because deep down, I need to feel that I worked hard for the good things in my life.  I don’t want to say anything was ever handed to me, we have an infinity for the underdog, those that have come from the bottom up.  Is it a matter of respect?  Is that fair?  Just because you come from “nothing,” that makes you more deserving for the amenities life has to offer?  That is absolutely not true, because somewhere along the way, someone in that family did work hard for the blessing and benefits.  This occurred to me as I was teaching the boys that they needed to work harder if they wanted a reward.  This could be allowance, dessert, a trip to the park.  The chores need to be done, good grades on homework, ect.  I won’t stop telling them this, because that is just the way life works, but does this mean that I am also instilling this belief that they will need to take the harder path because that will make them more deserving of life’s blessings?  My hope is that they learn the meaning of hard work, and that they won’t shy away from a complicated situation but that I will also one day be accomplished enough to give them things that I haven’t been able to over the years.  I do not want for them to feel that those things are less worthy simply because they feel that they weren’t earned.  However, with all that being said, I do think that the road less traveled, takes us on adventures that bring meaning to our life.  Challenges us in ways that keep us constantly moving forward and striving for bigger and better.