It’s a little known fact that the old Latin term for “okey-dokey” was okabus dokus. Look it up. What did the serving girl say to Julius Caesar when he asked her to get more grapes? I’m telling you, it’s a thing.
Or, maybe not.
I met with some old friends today that I haven’t seen in, like, 35 years. They’re not old, you know, relatively. But I hadn’t seen them for a long, long time.
We were discussing this and that and here and there, and I suddenly got this brain wave. Call me simple – go ahead, everybody else does – but how about this for a metaphor:
When you first start out on your own in the world, you don’t know anything. Here you are, twenty-something, and it’s all so bewildering. You don’t know where you’re going, or what you’re going to do.
One day follows another, and you get along. Careers, lovers, kids, they all come and go. All the while you’re putting one foot in front of the other, doing the best you can.
And then, one day, after a bunch of years, you pause to look back. And not like glancing in the rearview mirror at a red light, but a real look. You examine all the stuff that has happened on your road.
And it’s amazing. You started out at the edge of a dark forest, only seeing that little space just ahead of you.
But now there are towns and people and nations and oceans – all the stuff that you discovered and uncovered on your journey.
And there are the things that you did – stuff you created, accomplishments, awards, accolades, failures, disasters. All right there for you to see.
And loved ones, here in that town, there in that village. Kids, dogs, cats. They’re all there.
And right through the middle of all that is a beautifully paved road. Wasn’t there when you started, but it’s there now, because you paved it.
You linked all those towns and mountains and people and jobs and accomplishments together. You.
No matter where you are in life, at the beginning, the end, or somewhere in between, that beautiful road stretches out behind you, tying all the events of your life into one, continuous expanse of once-unknown but now treasured landscape.
The road ahead? Still an unknown. It’s like those video games where you clear the forest just enough to see what’s coming, but not where the road goes.
Which is cool, right? You can’t change the road ahead – no matter which way you take yourself, the road paves right underneath you.
So, what can you do?
Take a page from Julius Caesar. Put your thumb up in the air, smile, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Okubus dokus.
John D Reinhart 