As I drove away from Holland, Michigan, I knew I might be in real trouble. I had read about blizzards and seen them on TV plenty of times, but I had never experienced one firsthand.
Creeping eastward on I-196, the dim outline of dark shapes punctuated the whiteness on either side of my car. I soon realized these shapes were vehicles that had driven nose-first into the ditches along the road.
I have to admit I was pretty nervous. Did I say nervous? I meant I was terrified. Driving down the road in a raging blizzard with no visibility really rattled my cage.
Several hundred people in Kalamazoo were expecting to hear me speak that night and I didn’t want to disappoint them by not showing up. The problem was, I didn’t want to die trying to get there either. So I crawled forward at five or ten miles per hour, gripping the steering wheel in terror.
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of me. After about an hour, I no longer saw cars in the ditches—or any cars anywhere else on the road for that matter. All I saw was white, white, and more white. At one point, I stopped my car in the middle of the interstate, stepped out, and looked around to make sure I was still on the road. Because you’re reading this article, you know that I lived to tell the tale, but I didn’t have a copy of this essay with me in the car at the time, so I didn’t know if my story ended well or not.
Fortunately, after a couple of hours, the storm thinned and I finished my drive to Kalamazoo, where I did a program that same evening. Unlike people in the South, where I live, the folks in Michigan aren’t at all intimidated by snow and come out to events, blizzard or not.
The Power of Vision is the windshield through which you view the possibilities of your journey. If your windshield is obstructed or blurry, you’re going to have a hard time telling whether you’re on the right path in life—or whether you are still on the road at all.
How many people wander through life in a blizzard of bewilderment, unable to see five feet in front of them? How many people drive off course and never even notice? Or how many people notice that they’ve hit an obstacle and aren’t going anywhere but have no idea it was their lack of vision that landed them where they are?
The beginning of the year is an excellent time to focus on developing your vision. It’s a good time to ask yourself where you want to be and what you want your future to look like.
If you don’t know where you are going, then you shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed when you wind up somewhere you would rather not be.
© 2020 Charles Marshall. Charles Marshall is a nationally known humorous motivational speaker and author. Visit his Web site www.CharlesMarshallSpeaker.com or contact him via e-mail at Charles@CharlesMarshallSpeaker.com
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