“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell
A little boy, around four years old, chatted happily at the bus stop with his mother. He took small bites of the cracker in his hand in between sentences. A tiny crumb fell onto the sidewalk. He jumped up to get it, but his mother stopped him. He cried for what he’d lost, even though he still had most of the cracker in his hand.
The boy tested his free will when another tiny crumb fell onto the sidewalk. Before his mother could stop him he grabbed it off the ground and put it into his mouth. His mother yelled at him and he cried again. While he was crying more of his cracker fell onto the ground, which made him cry even harder.
How often do we cry over the tiny bits of unattainable crumbs we’ve dropped along the path of our lives? Maybe, like in the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel, we think those crumbs will lead us back home when we get lost. That’s why we find it hard to let go of them when they fall.
If we go back and try to find those crumbs we discover the birds ate them long ago. Now we’re truly lost until we decide to be grateful for all we still hold in the palm of our hands. When that happens our inner compass will always lead us back home to who we really are.
