I had a quiet bike ride for the first time in months today, and something I’d written down years ago but never published came back to mind. It’s time to share it. Answers to questions sometimes come in an unexpected place, even along the side of the road you’re on.

In the summer of 2002, I was doing just what I did today: biking. That summer, I was in Provo UT where I seem to end up at least once every summer. Provo features the Provo River Trail, a paved trail running up US 189 toward Sundance.

One morning that summer getting ready to ride the trail, I was searching for pretty much the same things I am today: where is my life, and where is it going? Rather than trying to answer the hard questions that day, I decided to just enjoy the ride and maybe inspiration would come along the way. The first miles of the trail are near traffic, but as the trail gets up into the canyon it gets much more peaceful and you can hear your thoughts much more clearly.

Passing Bridal Veil Falls heading toward Vivian, the trail starts to get into thicker tree cover with the river just to the left and the side of the foothill just to the right. I noticed I was approaching some minor construction, making adjustments to drainage. Marks that looked like measurements and instructions were spray painted on the pavement. As I continued, I saw two words painted very plainly and realized they were the answer I was looking for that day, and in fact today too.

DIG DEEPER

Of course, this was a simple instruction meant for the construction crew. But these words spoke clearly to me. Am I not digging deeply enough into the things that matter, and am I caught up in a bunch of stuff that doesn’t?

Technology is wonderful. It keeps us connected with people we care about. It brings us opportunity. It expands our imaginations. It can also overload us if we let it, and many of us feel the stress of requests and even demands coming from every possible direction. Add in a bit of worry about people you care about, and desire to do a good job, and wondering if you really make a difference (because sometimes, it’s hard to tell), and it all adds up.

We all wonder at times if we can do or take any more, if we can endure any longer, if we will ever get back to “normal” in our lives. But what is normal? Normal is what we are supposed to be, now, not in the past. What we often lose sight of is we’re being prepared for bigger and better things, and our spirit has to be exercised in order to grow. This means the challenges will get bigger, not smaller, when we are doing the right things.

As our spirit grows, our ability to meet the challenges improves. We grow in optimism, enthusiasm, understanding people and ourselves, and knowing how to work efficiently. These are great traits, but aren’t enough when things add up to overwhelming and we can’t see straight. There has to be a greater sense of purpose and belonging, and using our spirit to see what’s really important and what is just noise.

“Dig deeper” doesn’t mean just work harder. It takes courage to say yes when you’re already busy. It takes courage to say no when requests aren’t all that important, can be handled by someone else, or when things are “good enough”, or when something is important but takes you away from other things that are more important. It takes a lot of courage to ask for change when it’s needed. It takes still more courage to say yes to something that’s extremely important for the long term but you have no idea how it’s going to get done right now, and it needs to be done.

As I faced a couple of those last-category things the last few weeks, the experience has reminded me of another simple principle. When something isn’t supposed to move, thousands of people pushing on it won’t move it an inch. When something is supposed to happen, a very small group of people can open a door, change a mind, touch a heart, make a difference, get something important done, and move a mountain if that’s what is called for – and people will look back and say “that was easy.”

So today, as I was bouncing through a construction zone with lots of dirt and rocks and signs like “open trench” and “no dust” on the side of the road, I thought of that construction zone and those words from the trail I saw clearly long ago. (By the way, would someone tell me what a “closed trench” is? Isn’t “trench” pretty much self-explanatory?)

Friends new and old have helped me see where my life is. I am thankful for their reassurance I’m in the right place and I am not lost, just loaded up, and I’m glad they didn’t just leave me by the side of the road (which probably was tempting, being around me is no fun sometimes). I guess where my life goes isn’t so important right now; what matters is what’s at hand and what I do with it. The test right now is to dig deeper into the right things, and put the rest on hold or even let go, and stop worrying and trying to do everything. That’s not an easy challenge. Perfectionists and passionate people don’t settle, especially when it’s their efforts being looked at. It calls for stepping back for more than a minute, asking for help, looking at what should be dug into deeper first, and then digging in.

I know there is someone out there feeling all this, otherwise I wouldn’t have been prompted to share it. The demands of life and work today are tough, especially in this high-tech, 24/7 world. Stop, look around, see who is with you, decide what is worth your time and what isn’t, and dig deeper into what’s most important – and take care of the people who are with you. You’ll be surprised what happens.