Improving Life’s Path – November 26, 2000
Along each path we walk in life are unique, “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunities to make the world a better place. It’s been wisely said: “I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing . . . that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; . . . for I shall not pass this way again.”1
Our simple, consistent efforts to improve each path we walk can change the world. For example, John Chapman became the famous “Johnny Appleseed” by simply planting seeds along the trails he traveled. Today, 200 years later, there are apple trees in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois because of John Chapman.
Each day, we’re either planting the seeds for brighter tomorrows, or letting great opportunities pass us by. Friends move to other neighborhoods, coworkers retire, and children’s requests to “please hold me” or “read me a story” end all too soon.
A busy father recalls planting a memory by stepping out of his dress shoes, rolling up his slacks, and splashing in puddles with his barefooted, three-year-old daughter. Their laughter didn’t make the water warmer or keep their clothes from getting wet. Afterwards, he recognized that such an opportunity might never come again.
When we commit to improving every path we travel in life, we no longer see other people as competitors, obstacles, or distractions. We begin to realize that we’re all fellow travelers on life’s interconnected paths, and that our daily actions may influence the happiness of all who will one day walk where we now stand.
Emily Dickinson wrote, “If I can stop one heart from breaking, . . . [or] ease one life the aching or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”2
We hold the seeds of tomorrow in our hands. When we choose to plant them along life’s journey, we make the paths we travel better and brighter for those who walk where we may never pass again.
Program #3719
1See Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 15th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1980), 439.
2Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 606