In a roundabout way

We go round in circles.

Did you ever give that any thought? Our daily lives do go round in circles. Cyclical because our hours are divided between wakefulness and sleep, between daylight and nighttime, between sunshine and moonshine.

Each day, although it may be different from the next because your activities may change, still is circular. We awake – most of us around the same time each morning – and then we sleep – those of us who are fortunate enough to fall asleep easily usually around the same time each night.

This week’s photo challenge is rounded.  

We go round in circles.

And sometimes, I feel like that’s all I do – go round in circles. Often when trying to accomplish a task, I get distracted by something else or someone else needing my attention. I divert, but then I come back around to finish whatever I started. Even if it’s a couple of days later.

We’ve all been told at one time or another in our lives that we need to be well-rounded. When my children were contemplating college applications, I can’t even remember how often they were given advice to be sure their applications showed how well-rounded they were.

It wasn’t enough to be a scholastic achiever with excellent grades and great college prep test scores. It helped if they showed they were involved in service activities for their school and community or athletic endeavors.

We go round in circles.

How often do we feel like we’re heading in no particular direction? I still remember traveling with my sister on a day trip to a town that I wasn’t familiar with quite a few years ago. No problem, my sis assured me, because she had a GPS.

We found our destination just fine and took a little side trip to find a place for lunch. After that, we started off for home, but that GPS kept confusing us over and over again.  Turn left, it demanded. I turned left. Recalculating, it informed me. Turn left again. I complied. Turn left. Turn left.

And you guessed it, that device kept us going in circles. We finally turned it off and found our own way.

We go round in circles.

Where I live there aren’t many roundabouts –those circular kind of intersections in which drivers travel in one direction around a center island without traffic signals or stop signs. They can be confusing if you aren’t accustomed to driving in one.

Back in September, Papa and I took a mini-vacation of sorts to a historical area, Gettysburg, in our home state. And right there in the center of town was a roundabout. We slid out of the circular traffic pattern into a parking spot to visit a museum where President Abraham Lincoln put the finishing touches on his famous Gettysburg Address.

While walking around the roundabout – going in circles – I snapped a few photos, one I posted above.  I know there was order to it, but watching the traffic flow in that roundabout seemed chaotic to me because I’m not used to traveling in many roundabouts.

But as I recall going in circles around that roundabout, I’m reminded of one thing, that life, even a well-rounded one, is short. Too short to be going in circles without direction, without purpose.

We go round in circles.

Going in circles is what we do when we have no plans, no structure, and probably no goals either. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of going round in circles and I’m willing to deviate from the rounded path, follow a few dreams, live what’s rest of my life with purpose, and ask God to guide me along the way.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” ~ William Shakespeare in The Tempest

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