Have you found your Spy Point?

This is Daily Dadspeak—daily reflections on becoming a dad, while still growing up myself. You can find the full mini-pod audio list here.

This morning I walked along a ridge in the park to a place called Spy Point. Spy point is a natural, rocky lookout spot where you can see down over the passing traffic in the ravine. Presumably it was used by Native Americans and local settlers back in the day.

When I was a young child, I always wanted to go up to Spy Point every time my parents took me to this park. I would peer down from the cracks and pick off my invisible enemies with my pretend pistol. They would walk by, so focused on where they were going, that they never saw it coming.

As we get older, we tend to spend our lives more like those invisible enemies passing through the ravine. We focus on our immediate surroundings—our families, jobs, homes, and to-do lists—while keeping an eye on our goals just up ahead.

But we rarely take time to step back and look from above.

We’re so focused on the the path we’re on,we don’t even realize that we’re walking in a ravine. We forget it’s just one of many routes we could take. We don’t look back at where we’ve come from. And we forget that all paths eventually come to an end.

Goals and routines keep us moving forward in useful ways. But every once in awhile, it’s important to find your Spy Point. To take a look at your life from above. To make sure that, when it comes to an end, you’re happy to say you were on the right path.

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