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When I was 18, I was employed as a swamp guide in the beautiful Okefenokee Swamp of South Georgia. We opened for the tourists to enter the Okefenokee Swamp Park every morning at 9am. Before we could allow them to enter, we had to prepare things.... we had to clean the bathrooms, pick up trash from the previous day's visitors, etc. One of us would take an old beat up aluminum canoe and pole or paddle around the boat trail used for the usual 25 minute boat tours. We would be looking for floating trash left my the tourists from the day before. No matter how hard we tried, we could never keep all of them from dropping stuff here and there.
One morning, I got the choice job of canoeing around while the rest of the folks had the dirty duty of cleaning bathrooms and emptying trash cans. I choose to canoe the trail backwards instead of following the usual direction the boats ran. I guess I was feeling adventurous or something.
About 15 minutes later I suddenly looked around and could not recognize anything! After having viewed the trail from only one direction for days on end and hundreds of times, I was totally disoriented. At first, I thought that I had been so preoccupied with looking for trash and critters that I had moved off the regular trail and was now in an area I had never seen before. I was both "lost" and embarrassed! After all, I was a trail guide! I was not supposed to "get lost"!
After a couple of minutes of mind racing disorientation, I happened to glance behind me... and almost immediately I started to laugh at myself with a serious sense of relief... I knew where I was!
Since that time, I have always taken time to stop and look around in all directions as I travel through the swamp's trails (and other trails as well). I just sit and float for a bit and soak in the sights of nature. I can honestly say that I have never been that disoriented in the great Okefenokee since then.
I kind of think that if we make this a practice in life....to stop, sit and "smell the roses" from time to time...we will be able to keep our minds straight and then move on with confidence in life. Seems to work for me at least. Have a blessed day!
