I have long heard about the trails at Rancho Santa Fe, but it wasn’t until recently that I decided to add these strangely beautiful paths to my hiking venues. I spent almost four hours navigating their many twist and turns, which sort of reminded me of those we regularly encounter in life. Traversing these trails, in fact, was a welcome diversion after hearing that a friend of mine had died of a heart attack and two others were hit with life-changing news. Then, too, another friend had just provided me with some real insights on myself to think through, and this isolated excursion offered the ideal opportunity to do it.
What I found most interesting was that any place there was a hill, there were also depressions in the earth that horses had dug on their way up, making the climb that much more precarious. Again, analogies to life’s ups and downs suggested themselves, diverting my attention inward rather than to where I was walking, so that I failed to notice the big pile of horse manure in front of me and, of course, stepped right into it.
After cursing a bit (fortunately, with no one else around to hear me), I couldn’t help recalling a line made famous by the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield: “Look out for Number 1, but don’t step in Number 2” — which immediately transformed my outburst of ‘trail rage’ into laughter. It also reminded me that there are far worse things than getting a little shit on your shoes – like what happened to one of those friends I mentioned, who recounted how he had torn both Achilles heels and had to undergo an eight-month recovery, during which he lost his job. But then he added, “you get knocked down, you get back up and put one foot in front of the other” – which, in his case, was more than just a metaphor.
Reflecting on all this as I negotiated the tricky terrain of those unfamiliar trails and realizing that I, too, have issues that have to be dealt with, stepping in Number 2 just seemed appropriate — and even therapeutic (as were the trails themselves). Yes, I needed that hike, not just for the exercise, but to remind me that life, far from being a smooth and straight road, is more like a winding trail full of unanticipated twists and turns and the occasional encounters with poop that we can’t always avoid. But that’s what makes it challenging — the fact that no matter what obstacles we may encounter along the way, we need to constantly forge ahead toward whatever objectives we’ve set for ourselves.
Or, as the Johnnie Walker ad campaign puts it, just “keep walking.”
