The Long Way Home (The Friday Ficks S6 E32)

There were four municipal playgrounds in my town.

When I landed a summer job as a supervisor of one of them for the Parks & Recreation Department, I was assigned to the one farthest from my house.

This high-schooler didn't have a car. So every weekday, I rode my bicycle six miles to work and six miles home.

More than 45 years later, I remain friends with the guy who ran Parks & Rec. at the time. We still laugh about the fact that he assigned the kid without a car to the playground farthest away, when one sat just a mile from my house.

But here's what I remember most: I never saw the commute as a hardship. I loved to ride, so 12 miles a day simply became the price of getting to and from where I needed to be.

Looking back, I learned lessons that summer simply not found in a textbook.

The ride taught me that inconvenience isn't the same as impossibility, and that commitment is rarely dramatic but rather, just showing up again tomorrow.

It also taught me that perseverance isn't built in a single heroic moment. It's built one ordinary decision at a time.

I've spent much of my adult life riding long distances, but I sometimes think the most important ride I ever took was the six miles to a summer job.

Life doesn't always give you the shortest route. Sometimes it gives you the one you need, so don't waste energy wishing the road were shorter.

Those summer miles didn't make life easier.

But they did teach me that some of life's most valuable lessons are learned one mile, and one ordinary day, at a time.

Own the day. Own the weekend.

Carl