Following tracks

I was driving on the beach this morning when I had my "deep thought" of the week. Maybe I should post one weekly..."Thoughts Thursdays" or something. Or maybe not.

Anyway, this morning I was reflecting on how following in the tracks left by another vehicle sometimes makes it easier to drive on the beach. And sometimes makes it harder. Typically, driving in other vehicle tracks is a good strategy - the sand is packed and the going is easier as a result. But other times, driving in tracks creates more problems than it solves, specifically if the tracks were created by a very heavy vehicle, or have been packed down after use by many vehicles. In these case, the tracks get quite deep, which results in the bottom of lower-clearance vehicles scraping on the sand piled up between the parallel tire tracks. So in those instances driving in the tracks left by another vehicle is not a good idea.

I think life is like that. It many ways, it can be made easier by learning from others, following in their footsteps, and not reinventing wheels. But if the tracks left by the person you are following are not a good fit for the type of person you are, you may simply hurt yourself by trying to follow those particular tracks.

I feel like I'm not doing a good job expressing this idea, so it may just sound goofy. But there you have it...that's as deep as I'm getting this week!