The road not considered

"Let's give it a try"

I don't think I say this phrase enough. I'm too used to being one step ahead of the conversation, to thinking of reasons why something might fail, why a course should be chosen or averted. I'm not always good at strategy (I'm very easy to beat in chess) but I am good at imagining results of certain decisions. Where I lack this insight especially, is visually. I watch HGTV in awe at the designers who can take an old barn and turn it into a palace. If you were to ask me to mark-off a 3-foot square on the floor I would probably end up with a 4.3-foot trapezoid. It's actually quite pathetic.

Last night, Andrew and I rearranged our living room to incorporate a newly-acquired dining table and four chairs. We started by talking about what we should do but, in a rare moment of personal insight, I said "I'm never going to know until I see it. Let's just try things out." The first attempt was the most difficult. We put a table here, the couch there, and it looked bad. Fortunately, we were ready to tackle the problem, so when Andrew suggested something else, I said "let's give it a try." I probably uttered that phrase more often last night than I have in the entire summer as we arranged and rearranged until we were satisfied (and the pizza came).

The result surprised me. Not only did we end up with a fantastic living and dining area, but that spirit of being willing to try pervaded the whole evening. We were more open-minded in our conversations, better listeners, better at trying to express something, failing, and trying something else.

So though Robert Frost may have taken the road less travelled by when they diverged in that yellow wood, I like to imagine that, were I walking with Andrew, he might suggest going off the path entirely, and that I might say "sure, let's give it a try."