Detour

I have been reading a preprint of Cam Taylor’s book, Detour: A Roadmap For When Life Gets Rerouted. The book has much to say to anyone who has ever faced adversity (and of course, that is all of us.) It recounts the “detour” his life took following a near-deadly motorcycle crash.  I am part-way through the book and have already found some gems of encouragement. The following quote is certainly one of the strongest statements made by Taylor.

When the world I knew was interrupted by the chaos and mess of the crash, it threw me into a tailspin. When the road ended, my mind avoided the present because it hurt. It was easier to dwell on the past, which looked so good looking back, or to fixate longingly on the future, when things would be “normal” again. I learned quickly, however, that now was the only reality I had. The past was in my memory, and the future was in my imagination. There is a time and a place to reflect on past memories and to dream of future possibilities, but that is only possible when our feet are firmly grounded in now. But I wondered, “How do I get there?” It started when I separated fact from fiction. (Taylor, 2017, p. 27)

It is easy to have a focus on “the past,” “what might have been,” and the “if-onlys” of life. Have you ever caught yourself feeling like you had been born too late? Do we not tend to think that former times were “the good-old-days?” When life throws us a difficult circumstance, our first reaction is likely to be to fixate on how it might have been avoided. Perhaps that is even a normal reaction.  But the insight Taylor brings is that, at a certain point, it is unhealthy to “dwell on the past” or “fixate longingly on the future.” He realized, and I too must realize, that “now” is the only reality we have. “There is a time and a place to reflect on past memories and to dream of future possibilities, but this is only possible when our feet are firmly grounded in now” (emphasis added).

I look forward to further insights from the book and will pass them along to the readers of this blog. Watch Taylor’s blog for the release of Detour. (http://camtaylor.net)

Works Cited:

Taylor, C. (2017). Detour: A Roadmap For When Life Gets Rerouted. Abbotsford: InFocus Publishing.