“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridges to cross and which to burn.” –David Russell
Life’s journey is not a straight and narrow pathway that we can blindly follow from beginning to end. Many times during our journey we will come upon barriers which will force us to change course. Sometimes when we reach such a point there may be only one alternative route, but usually we have multiple options. Life’s journey requires us to make a lot of choices along the way, and each choice we make helps to determine the choices that we will have to face farther down the road.
When I look back on my life, the best way I can describe it is to compare it to a maze, which is an intricate network of winding pathways where choices have to be made which determine the choices that will be available further along. I feel I was thrown into such a maze as a young man. I had always thought that I would spend my entire life as a farmer. When I was 22 years old, I received a notice from the local draft board instructing me to go to Indianapolis for an army physical in preparation for induction into the armed services. Much to my surprise, I flunked the army physical because of a heart murmur that I did not know I had. As a result, I was thrown into a state of limbo. A chance conversation with another farmer revealed that his daughter was enrolled at Ball State University, which was within commuting distance of my home, and that the cost of tuition at Ball State was only a tiny fraction of what I had imagined it would be. Suddenly, I felt a strong urge to go to college, and life would never be the same again.
From that point on, most of the events of my life have come as a surprise to me. I have felt like I was walking through a maze where every time a door was slammed in my face, two other doors opened and I had to choose which one to enter. Once that decision was made, a little farther down the maze I had to choose between two other open doors, and so on throughout life. I never planned to write an inspirational newspaper column, but a conversation with a friend in July 1994 inspired me to write the first installment of what would become Contemplating Life. For more than 20 years since that first chance writing, I wrote a new installment each and every week.
Some of the other things I have done that I had never expected to do included getting a Ph.D. degree in economics and writing seven books on the subject, being a college professor for 30 years, doing more than 170 radio interviews, appearing on national TV news programs three times and driving a cherry red 1991 Oldsmobile (plastered with signs warning about the dangers of the skyrocketing national debt) throughout Florida during the 2000 presidential campaign.
I probably could have been happy spending my life as a farmer, but that was not to be my fate. I’m not so sure anymore that we have as much free choice as I once thought. Perhaps God has plans for us that are not always consistent with our own plans.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2025
Allen W. Smith
