Every Day Crossroads

I grew up in a small West Texas town. Beginning in junior high, I was on a club soccer team that traveled throughout Texas to play games. I remember driving into the big cities, Dallas was the closest, and seeing those crazy highway intersections that loop and turn and rise like something out of space.

My parents were always nervous when they had to navigate these complex crossroads. There were so many ways to get lost.

I’ve often thought about this metaphor when facing a crossroad-type decision in my life. Which way will I go? What will the repercussions be? How do I know what is best? Trying to follow the lines in advance is much like trying to watch each of those Dallas roads (while still driving sixty miles-per-hour)!

Everyday Crossroads

Like you, I do my best at the crossroads. I make a decision and continue my journey.

What has surprised me most about life is how frequently I encounter a crossroad. It isn’t just when I am considering dating (or marrying) someone, what school to go to, or what job to take – although each of those certainly counts. It is also about what I am going to do with my free time today, what words I am going to write, what attitude I am going to adopt. Every day, in any given situation, I find myself at a crossroad.

I think one of the great myths of human life is that you can get to one definitive crossroad, navigate it justly, and move on to smooth sailing the rest of your life. We are constantly looking for that fabled crossroad, that one decision. But every day we wake up and find ourselves at another intersection.

Transcendence

These everyday crossroads certainly make the journey more complicated and more confusing.

Here are a couple crossroads I find myself at every single day:

First, the crossroad of stewarding my own journey (living my best life) and influencing those around me (being mindful and intentional about the impact I have). We consider this the crossroad of character and leadership. What is best for me and what is best for others? How do I live as a meaningful individual and as a participant in meaningful community – and how do the two intersect?

Second, the crossroad between work life and home life. Business and pleasure. Work and rest. My family and my job.

In both of these examples, I have discovered a secret that has transformed the way I approach life and the way I navigate these everyday crossroads.

The secret is that these two roads are not combative toward one another. They are not two different options I have to choose between. They are not mutually exclusive.

All metaphors are imperfect and this is where the highway imagery falls short. The truth is I have more options than choosing life or home, me or others. There are choices that include both. In this sense, the crossroads are less about how to navigate one road versus the other and more about how to make choices that transcend both.

If I am in these crossroads everyday, that is another way of saying I am never going to move beyond it. I will always need to discern between me and others, work and home. I live in these crossroads. It isn’t a temporary decision, a one-off, a circumstantial reality that comes and goes. It is the very essence of life. And my decision-making ought to treat it as such.

Visit our new website The Crossroad: A collection of resources that invite leaders to make choices that align with their true character and influence the world around them.