So, I’m in the backyard scraping paint off of some chairs for a service project (don’t ask), and it’s kind of boring.

Here’s my thoughts: Do you suppose that Josiah Franklin, having had to give up on his dream of having Benjamin become a minister—do you suppose he saw this as a tragedy?

What about George Washington, whose mother refused to let him go to sea with the British Royal Navy? He undoubtedly would have been an admiral. He was simply too great not to be great.

Do we ever do this, in our smaller ways? Do we ever think we’ve lost, and that we’re not going to be what we were meant to be, and really, we’re just taking a different path? When and why? Because sometimes, someone can lose their way and fail to become what they might have been. Other times, they’re just going down a different path.

Scraping paint is really, really boring.