Milestones

     The ancient Romans came up with some pretty nifty ideas. Take the milestone for instance. Of course they didn't call it that. They used measurements with names like stadia and passus, but you get the idea.

     Milestones guided travelers throughout the Roman Empire, giving them information about which road they were on and the distance to their destination. Since there were no GPS satellites to pinpoint someone to within a few metres anywhere on the planet, this was good stuff to know. There was even a "golden milestone", placed in the Roman Forum, which marked the symbolic centre of the Empire. All distances were measured from it. Whether you were in England or Egypt, you'd always know how far it was to Rome.

     Milestones were such a good idea that their use has continued all the way up to the present.

     Ever notice those little numbered signs on major highways? Yup. Milestones. (Okay, so they're not stone). When I was a kid, we'd make a game of counting down the distance remaining to wherever we were headed. "Are we there yet?" became a math lesson, because every time I asked I was told to subtract the number on the next marker. Today of course, kids play video games or watch movies on trips. So much for math.

     As much as they might have helped my arithmetic skills, today a milestone is more metaphor than material.

     And since we often describe our lives as journeys, it's only natural to think of the events in our lives as milestones that we pass as we travel life's road. My daughter reached a significant milestone when she started high school. My son, when his daughter was born. A friend, by completing a course of study and beginning a new career.

     It might be nice, if boring, to travel through life as if we were on a superhighway. No stop signs, no turns. Just keep counting down the numbers on the little metal signs until you arrive.

     Most of the time, however, life is back roads and potholed streets, with multiple crossroads and detours. We know where we want to go, but getting there is anything but a straight line.

     No matter how hard we try, there are times when we're bound to make a wrong turn.

     That's not always a bad thing. I've found some of the most interesting places by accident after making a wrong turn. Every road has a milestone or two somewhere along the way. Our detours and wrong turns often lead us to new experiences, or to meet new people.

     Dad used to like to travel the back roads where he grew up. Often little more than strips of gravel winding around outcrops of rock, it never took long before I wasn't sure whether we were going north or south. Dad never worried about that. I think he worked on the "all roads lead to Rome" principle, even if some of them take a very long time to get there.

     Sometimes, coming to the next crossroads, we'd find that we'd been headed away from our intended destination. Dad could have insisted that this was where he'd planned to be all along, but he didn't. We just read the signs, figured out where we needed to go, and made the turn. No anger or excuses, no finger pointing. Just change direction and get back on track, appreciating the places we'd seen on our detour.

     Life is like that too. When we realize we've made a wrong turn, we can insist this was where we wanted to be. We can blame someone else for giving us bad advice.

     Or we can read the signs, change direction, appreciate what we've learned, and get back on track.

     And watch for the next milestone.