Have you ever wanted to stop time?  Know the future?   Accomplish a complex goal quickly? 

One night a few years ago, I woke up at three a.m., my head whirling with all that I needed to accomplish and all the questions I had about the future.  If I could just know NOW what was around the next corner.  Then I would know how to invest my time and energy. The not knowing was making me (I was making me) crazy and sleepless.

I went into my home office and slipped a book off the shelf, “The Snow Leopard.”  At the moment, I’m in my Dallas International World Headquarters Hilton and thus cannot quote exactly, but the pages opened to a scene in which the narrator was doubting whether or not he could finish his trek into the Himalayas…when a grasshopper in his path spoke to him. ( Remember, not a quote…been years… the important part is the message.)

The narrator asked the grasshopper how he could so bravely bounce up into the air and come down again on the path when the slightest wrong tilt or gust of wind and he’d be in flight for two miles straight down. The grasshopper answered something like this. “What choice do I have or does anyone really have?  I go foward, one step at a time with all my spirit.  What happens, happens.  It’s my path to go one step at a time.”

I was reminded that no matter how we try, this is our job.  To put one foot in front of the other with courage. 

One foot in front of the other, not skittering off the path in fear of what might happen, not taking side paths out of fear, and somehow, some way bringing something to the human struggle.

My goal is to bring  a smile now and then. Two guys are talking.

First Guy: “I saw a clown one street over.”

Second Guy: “Was it a clown, or just someone dressed up like a clown?”

Mexico…