Did you know it was once rumored that the streets of Boston were nothing more than paved cow paths?
This was proved a myth, of course, but it’s still an interesting thought.
And, giving consideration to the trajectories of our earliest transportation system, it does seem almost plausible.
Because that’s the thing about cow paths … they always lead somewhere beneficial to the cow …To shelter. To safety. To water. To greener grass … or the farmers feed lot.
They aren’t just mindlessly meandering. There is a means and method to these wayfaring passages.
The “cow path theory” in the modern business world has given these well-beaten paths a bad wrap by associating them with a mindless “follow the leader” approach to managing employees.
But despite the negative connotations associated with these paths, they are actually inherently intelligent “maps.”
These “paths of least resistance” aren’t aimless … they are instinctual.
They follow the natural slope of the land to help the animal conserve energy. Through woods and tall grass these well-beaten paths offer an unobstructed view of what lies ahead to keep them safe.
They also give insight into their interdependent nature. They trust the path the way we trust a map. They inherently trust that the trail carved out for them by generations before is good … so they follow it. However, if the map or path no longer agree with the ground, they adjust, and a new path is formed.
Personally, I think we can find a deeper understanding to the overall design for our lives, too, through these cow paths.
Generally speaking, we can and should trust the rudimentary path our parents and future generations have charted out for us. Our lives are all different, but the same. They may look different, but they should be pointed in the same direction with the same eternal objective in the end.
Their life journey will never be our journey, but they have left behind guides and signposts for us to follow to keep us from wandering too far off course. They have carved out a preliminary path to keep us on solid ground and keep us pointed in the right direction.
But as times change and the earth evolves, if we should ever find the map no longer agrees with the ground we’re on … don’t rewrite it entirely or abandon the map completely … just adjust it a bit and carry on so the next generation will know the way and can follow our path down the “narrow road.”
(Which, in my mind, looks a lot like a cow
path)
– Mackenzie Free –
Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama
