When I was a kid, once a year we’d make a trip from Dallas to Beaumont, Texas.
We had family there (most of the grandparents and aunts and uncles) so during the overwhelming heat of the Texas summers, we’d all hop in the 1976 family station-wagon and make the 300 mile one-way trip.
It was brutal. For many reasons.
First, we could only drive 55 MPH. That was the law then.
Plus, our car wouldn’t go much faster even if we tried. (It was a hunk of junk.) Plus, too many kids. 7 of us in a standard-sized station wagon. That meant at least two of us had to ride in the “way-back” seat which faced… BACKWARD.
If any kids got queasy (and one of us always did – heck, we were facing backwards) you could EXPECT the smell of upchuck for a few hundred miles.
NOTE: NEVER let your kids eat Cheetos if you think there’s ANY chance of an upchuck. (I still can’t eat Cheetos from P.T.C.T.S.D. – Post Traumatic Cheeto Throw-Up Stress Disorder.) Yep, It’s a real thing.
Plus… no AC. That was the standard in 1970’s station wagons. Of course, my Dad would always claim we had 4-55 AC. That meant we’d roll all 4 windows down and drive 55.
Believe me, when it’s 102 degrees with 89% humidity, it felt more like someone was blowing a “heat-gun” at you than it felt like air-conditioning.
But the worst part was that almost every trip… seriously… we’d…
Break down.
Yep, on the side of the road on I45 somewhere in between Corsicana and Houston we’d be sitting on the side of the road… waiting… for my uncle, Mike to make the long drive UP…FROM Beaumont to rescue us.
Uncle Mike… was a mechanic. And more importantly, a FREE mechanic.
So there we were, once a year, on the side of the road, for hours and hours in blazing heat. Waiting… and sweating. And sweating more… and more.
Frankly… it SUCKED!
I’ll never forget one time after one of these breakdowns I went over to my Dad and said, “Why do we keep doing this? We know we’re gonna break down.”
My father smiled real big and in a jolly voice, simply replied…
“It’s just life till something goes wrong. THEN… IT’S AN ADVENTURE.”
And he was right.
I can’t remember much of anything we did IN Beaumont, but I can remember almost ALL of the things we did during our breakdowns.
From illegally fishing in ponds to chasing cows to burying my little brother Keath. It was straight up… family fun time.
It seems going “off script” and when “things go wrong” is where the REAL MEMORIES are made.
SO as I grew and built my own family, I made it a point to enjoy the “off-script” and “things go wrong” moments… and teach my kids the same principle that my Dad taught me.
“It’s just life until something goes wrong… then, it’s an adventure.
Many years ago, we took a trip from Boise, Idaho down to Salt Lake City to vacation with our Texas family who drove up from Texas.
Grammas and Grandpas and Uncles and Aunts and cousins were all there and we spent the week having lots of fun. But the thing my kids remember most about that entire trip was the drive back. Why? Because something really crazy happened. Something went wrong and we had to go off-script.
On our drive back there was a wreck on the Interstate way ahead of us and it backed traffic up. And traffic was STOPPED. Not slow… not really slow… but COMPLETELY STOPPED.
And the rumors were that it would be HOURS before it reopened.
So, Zak, one of my older sons, hopped on his iPhone and saw that there was a way AROUND the traffic but it meant we had to drive through the military missile range.
I immediately screamed, “THAT’S AWESOME! Let’s go!”
“You know… Because it’s just life until something goes wrong… then it’s an ADVENTURE.”
And without waiting for my wife, Shelly to agree, we pulled off the Interstate and crossed over the road and off we went to go “off-roading” in our fully loaded Toyota Sequoia.
As we drove through the missile range I joked about getting blown up – and what a GREAT STORY that would be to tell our friends. Especially when we saw big holes in the ground and could only go about 10 or 15 miles an hour because the ground was so gravely and REALLY only made for jeeps.
When the kids and Shelly got nervous I’d say stuff like, “C’mon. There’d be signs if it were dangerous.”
Then when we saw signs I’d say, “That’s just a recommendation. There’d be a barrier if they were serious.
So we kept on going and he kept goofing and we laughed and smiled and joked all the way.
When we FINALLY were able to get back on a concrete road almost immediately we heard a THUMP, THUMP, THUMP… and Shelly said, “Sounds like we broke something.”
So, we pulled over in a parking lot where there were a bunch of tanks behind a fence and I checked it out and said, “We have a flat tire to change.”
Then I asked Zak, “Will you help me? Let’s time it and see how fast we can do it?”
Well, it was hot and we were tired and I could tell the kids were getting grumpy so I said, “Isn’t this cool? You guys get to look at those tanks while we fix the flat. Now THAT’S an adventure.”
And somehow… THEY BELIEVED ME.
So they all got out and started looking at the tanks…
UNTIL…
A security guard rolled up and started to question me. As if we were scoping out the area to pull some kind of a terrorist attack.
So I told the guard, “I’m just fixing a flat. Nothing sinister going on here.”
Then… in record time Zak and I fixed the flat and we hopped back in the car and made our way home.
A few years later I was shocked to hear Chloe, who was only six-years-old when this happened, telling this story in a talk she gave in Church.
But it confirmed what I already knew. Going “off script” is where the real memories are made.
Think about that for a moment…
If I were to ask you about some of your most vivid memories, most likely you’d share with me the times that were “different.” Where something unique or unusual happened.
Here’s how we can use that to our advantage. When change occurs, when something goes wrong, when our world turns topsy-turvy…
THAT’S when we can recognize it’s an opportunity for us to “write the script” for our lives.
And create lasting GOOD… memories.
Here’s what’s cool.
WE… get to direct the movie of our life.
We may not be able to write WHAT HAPPENS to us (obviously) but we definitely write the role we play. Our “part” in our movie can be of the bitter, mean-hearted “bad guy” or unfailingly optimistic “good guy.”
And if we find the “movie” we are currently living in is uninteresting or a steady decline… OR A TRAGEDY… or anything we decide will not be what we’d like… we can’t blame our spouses, or our kids or family or friends or money or circumstance or chance…
or even God.
Instead, I suggest we take a good, long look at the way we are directing our life’s movie.
We must forget about the past or real or imagined injuries to us or our pride – what’s done is done and we can’t change that.
What we CAN change is how it looks moving forward… And the ending. We can build a wonderful, triumphant story – and play the kind of role in our own personal movie that we’d love to watch and enjoy.
I can promise you this.
Our story… the Jetsel story… will be one of triumph over tragedy. The Jetsel story will be the kind you’d want to watch if you want to feel uplifted and motivated and KNOW… that no matter WHAT happens you can live a magnificent and meaningful life spent serving others.
And remember, it’s just life… until something goes wrong… then it’s an adventure.
So, decide today to write YOUR adventure. I can’t wait to hear about it.
Leave a Reply