Did you ever feel like you were doing everything you could think of to move forward, but you just felt stuck? The more you focused on where you were, the less you focused on where you wanted to go… the more you just kept treading water in the place you didn’t want to be?
I hear you, Sista.
I spent some time in Italy awhile back. Walking to the train station one morning in a cute little town called Siena, I got lost. I stopped all the sweet old Italian mamas and papas I could find, and asked each one in my beginner’s Italian: “Dov’é la stazione?” (“Where is the train station?”). All of them said the same thing: “Avanti! Avanti!” (“Keep going!”)
No matter how many people I asked, they all said I was only five minutes away. Okay, they were lying. It was kind of funny, actually. But they also said, again and again: “Avanti! Avanti!”
Sure, I could have focused on where I was, upset they I couldn’t find the train station, sitting on a curb eating gelato to make myself feel better.
But thanks to those sweet old Italians, I kept focusing on where I wanted to go. I kept hearing “Avanti! Avanti!” in my ears as I lugged my backpack to the station.
Did I ever once doubt that the train station existed? No. Did I give up because I wasn’t finding it as quickly as I wanted to? No. I just kept going. And you can, too.
Looking for something in life you just can’t seem to find? It’s there. It really is.
“Avanti! Avanti!”, kids.
