Off the Beaten Path
What started as a self help tool to reflect on the previous year’s successes, failures, new found friends, talents, heartaches and inspire myself for another year of coping with the physical deterioration of ALS, has morphed into a local, regional and most recently a global (via the MDA-ALS website) philosophical message of self awareness.
June 11th will be the seven year anniversary of my ALS diagnosis. Up to that moment I was a permanent fixture on the beaten path. As a matter of fact, I was so busy travelling the path that I was one reason why it was so beat down. But on that day in June, I was knocked off of my path by the force of a semi truck. The once smooth track was now a pothole filled mud farm road.
What I’ve learned since then is that the speed at which you travel the path is not important unless you know where you are going. The path has many exits, both right and left, accompanied by tempting billboards trying to lead you astray. Many people lose their way and spend years searching for a way back to the path. I write this to send out a beacon, aiding the lost to find themselves and get back on track.
As I mostly sit alongside the path, watching with never ending hope of returning to my now overgrown seldom used path, I can’t help but notice the people that choose to trudge along their path unhappily, as if they were being forced down it. Life is a journey along a dead end street of an undetermined length. The trip will not always be pleasant, but the manner in which you deal with the detours and constant construction is completely under your control.
Stay on the beaten path and re-evaluate where you are going often. Take the road less travelled once in a while and stop to enjoy the special moments, because no one knows when the path will come to an end. Be prepared for it, but don’t waste time worrying about it. Choose your path wisely and choose to enjoy the ride.
Barry Coughlin
What scale and tools do I collect with,
What voyeur’s wrap I claim in readiness.
Are the ages of my father come to bear,
Or will be for next generation’s benefit:
And for sure hope luck to smile a lot,
Unless I weaken in devotion,
That I harbor this pretext,
Where course is subject to a wanton age.
Gather, flock with us; examine all to beyond:
Valiant person have surpassed our time.