A tree spirit has been watching a man travel the same path over and over again for years and years.
One day she saw the man walking and decided to tell him,
“You have been at this juncture before my friend.”
He being a bit confused said, “Yes it does look familiar, but I don’t know why I keep ending up here.”
And she smiled at him and said, “Yes, that is because you keep treading the same path.”
The man, being a bit puzzled asked, “Yes, I know, but I’m not sure where I’m trying to go.”
She grew silent for a moment and asked him,
“Where do you want to go?”
He looked away for a moment,
“I don’t know. I’ve been walking through this forest for a long time and everywhere I go seems to look the same.”
She then said,
“If you don’t know where you want to go, then you don’t need to know where to go. You could just go anywhere, and it will be the same.”
“But I feel like I should be somewhere else, somewhere different. All this sameness just makes no sense to me. I want something new! Something exciting!
She pointed to the direction to her left and said, “Then go this way.”
He looked down that way and stated, “No I don’t want to go that way, that way looks scary. Its a place I’ve never been!”
She looked at him and shrugged and said, “Then why don’t you go this way?” As she pointed to her right.
He looked and sighed, “That’s the way I’ve always gone, but I keep ending up right here.”
She pondered the situation for a moment.
“Well, if you go to my right you’ll keep ending up here, and that won’t be exciting. But if you go to my left, you’ll travel into new territory, and you’ll gain the excitement you seek. Isn’t that what you want?”
He looked at her and said, “Yes that is what I want, but can’t I have the excitement without the unfamiliarity?”
She looked at him and laughed.
“You can but how exciting would that be?”
He laughed in agreement.
“I’ll just have to try that way.”
She nodded, “I think that’s what you wanted all along.”
The man thanked the tree spirit and headed on his way, on the new path, towards excitement and unfamiliarity.
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