End Of The Line

Let me ask you this question, were you the type of child that always wanted to be first in line? For its within a child's mind that if he or she is first in line one will get some type of special reward handed to him or her. Working with kids over the years, I witnessed countless kids scratch, claw, push, shove, trip, and elbow their way to get to that number one spot. Once the dust settles, so to speak, kids are either on the floor crying due to being knocked to the floor, some are having pushing and shoving matches to be behind the number one girl or boy, and others are complaining that he or she is cutting in front of him or her in line. *Sigh* Welcome to my world folks, would you like to come in and stay for a bit?

It can truly befuddle the mind of a full grown adult that kids are fighting for a spot in line that will take each and every child both in front, middle, and back to the same place. In some aspects, it's a whole lot safer to be in the middle or somewhere in the back rather than in the front. In a way, it's that power to be the leader of the pack that you have to deal with another child trying to steal your spot and take over one's leadership position away from him or her. Though it may sound funny to each of us who have hopefully outgrown these childish antics and/or behavior and matured, to a child it's that competitive spirit that will probably help him or her in the real world one day.

Yet, each of us may not want to be first in line anymore; but a person does want to be the first to attain the finer things in life such as a car, house, spouse, or that successful job one dreams about. Inevitably, one just wants to be either two steps in front or beyond his or her competition, which oftentimes is one's own friends. For each of us can be somewhat green with envy as we see close friends or associates getting ahead of the line or completely cutting it. We've all heard of people making it big who didn't want to take the road less traveled and just tried to keep cutting in line to get into a spot that might possibly get himself or herself in or near the front of the line.

In any case, as each of us grow up and get into the groove of the daily grind, we will find ourselves stepping into many lines. Lines that either flow smoothly or take forever to move such as the back, doctor's office, dentist, or the post office. It can really test a person's patience standing or waiting in line for minutes or hours on end waiting for something to someone and not go completely insane. As young kids, we learned that patience is a virtue, but for some patience is not one of their strong suits as they want to be at the front of the line as soon as possible because he or she has things to do and people to see. For it's just a matter of keeping one's composure when the line of life isn't moving quickly enough.

It's been said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. In the whole scheme of things, a person has to try to keep on the straight and narrow to avoid being sent to the back of the line, so to speak. It's at the back of the line that a person actually has time to see the bigger picture of one's own mistakes that he or she has made. Thinking about it, being number one isn't all that its cracked up to be as you spend time constantly wondering who is going to take your spot away from you. In retrospect, each of us are all heading in the same direction as we fight to be on top of that proverbial totem pole to one's goal; but it's from the end of the line that we all started our journey to our intended goal.