Corners

A friend who owns a small farm in Maine amuses and instructs with his posts about his adventures and lessons learned on his farm. Today he wrote about corners on the farm and inspired me to write about corners in life.
     

Corners are to be turned. They make us change direction but not turn backwards so they are useful. When we turn corners, we can be avoiding something unpleasant or avoiding an obstruction yet staying on course. When we turn a corner, we change direction; perhaps we are being smart to shift direction so we can continue our journey to our original destination. It may be necessary to turn that corner so we do not become stuck. Turn and continue. That is growth.

You cannot see around a corner so it may take some courage to turn it and move on. Life’s corners are like that. It may be scary to keep moving when you cannot see what is coming, but it is necessary to swallow the fear and move on. Progress isn’t always a straight line.

 So corners can  imply progress: “My life turned a corner when I graduated”, or “when I got my new job” or “when I had my first child.”  These are positive corners allowing us to move on to our next step in life.  It’s funny to think that a life that doesn’t turn corners but progresses in a straight line, may not be interesting or may not be developing and moving forward.  So, perhaps we need corners?

We don’t want to paint ourselves into a corner or be forced into a corner by a person or by life’s exigencies because then we may have to fight (or think) ourselves out of the corner back into freedom. That will require flexibility in thinking and an embracing of something new. Our plans will have to change to get out of the corner, and we may have to try different techniques or several attempts before we escape the two confining walls that have come together and temporarily stopped us. When we successfully escape the corner, we have grown.

So corners can serve as challenges and lessons. They can force us to change and grow and think differently. They can lure us onward to see what is around each one. They serve as milestones in life, either negative or positive. We need corners. And we need to negotiate them, not become stuck by them. So we shouldn't be afraid of corners; we should embrace them, grow because of them, and use them to learn new ways of moving through life.

Langston Hughes has a thought about corners.

Final Curve

When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left 

Langston Hughes