When we die, I am convinced that God will review our life with us.  I’m sure He will laugh, cry and sigh with us as we “review” our personal journey on this blue marble in the void of the universe.  And yet, there are moments in our everyday lives where I believe we get a glimpse of what’s to come.

Before that review however, we’re here to do what it is we do.  Sometimes, it feels as though there is no purpose, no tack to our lives.  Almost as if we are boats cast adrift in a huge, impersonal ocean that tosses us wherever it desires.

Many of us live hectic, frantic, “lives of quiet desperation,” as Thoreau would say.

And, as Thomas Hobbes wrote:

…the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

We race from meeting to appointment, from social gathering to class, from the office to home to rest our head.

And then we repeat the process 6 or so hours later seemingly all within the singular vacuum of our own personal struggles, trials, triumphs.

Yet, we all find time to stop for the ducks.

“Everyone Stops for the Ducks”

My bride (I call her my Loverly Wife) made this comment the other day as we were running around getting errands done with our sons, That’s My Boy and Attaboy.  And she’s dead right!

We were swinging out of  a strip mall parking lot next to a pond or catch basin when a family of Canadian geese were walking across the entranceway.  Cars in both directions just stopped to watch the mommy and daddy geese squawk their admonitions to their half dozen, furry goslings.

To peer into the cars waiting for this short parade to pass, it was remarkable to see folks grinning from ear to ear.  Imagine that; we’ve all got places to go, people to see, yet when a short, fuzzy parade halts our movement, we still have the capacity to sit still and admire the ducks on parade.

Do We Stop To Consider The Ducks?

Yet, here’s where I wonder if we are paying attention, at all, to what is going on around us.  Do we ever consider how these geese get along, day to day, finding food, finding shelter, raising a family?  And yet, day after day, these geese make the traffic stop as they go about their business.

Contrast their seemingly random wanderings in their daily lives with our own ability to plan, scheme and execute our plans.  We schedule our days to “maximize” our time to accomplish our goals, whatever they may be on a given day.  We think that if we can plan out our days to the minute that somehow a reward of sorts is waiting for us.

But we’re the ones that wait for the ducks to cross.  The ducks that simply do what they are supposed to do, regardless of schedules, goals or timelines.

Ducky Grace

I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t supposed to exercise a little grace for ourselves when our day just doesn’t go the way we planned.  As I type out these thoughts, I am in the midst of planning multiple showings and appointments with my clients in the next few days.  Very few of these appointments are staying pinned down on my calendar and I’m frustrated.

Frustrated that the schedule is not coming together the way I want it to come together.

That’s the point, isn’t it?  Life is a journey, not a destination.  Without these bobs and weaves, life would be too predictable.  Boring, even.

That’s My Boy saw me admiring his artwork yesterday morning.  He insisted I take this to my office and hang it up where “your clients and co-workers can see it.  It’ll make ‘em smile!”

That’s My Boy << for a reason!

The fountain in Kellogg Park. If you’re standing here, be sure to swing by and say ‘Hi!’ The office is only a half block away!

Yep, I like showing homes in Ann Arbor. Get to watch crew teams practice on the Huron.

Seen while showing homes recently…

Mmmm… Happy Birthday Biggby! Congrats to Nishant on the one year anniversary of Biggby South Lyon.