Heading into the unknown

This week I took a risk that surprised me and shocked my friends. I picked up some hitchhikers at a service station. Now, I’ve watched enough films to know that either the driver or the hitch hiker comes to a sticky end.  And if it was my daughter or my niece and nephew picking them up I’d have gone mad.

The hitch hikers were students on a charity challenge to see how far away from their university they could get in 36 hours and of course they weren't allowed any money.  I decided on the spur of the moment to take them with me for three reasons:

• They were going out the service station door at the same time as me
• The destination on their board was close to where I was going
• If it had been my daughter or my niece and nephew on that challenge I’d have wanted them to be picked up by someone friendly and nonthreatening.

We got chatting and it occurred to me how useful the trip was for their working lives.  They needed to be willing to take a risk – who knows where they’d end up?

They were resourceful. They had no money so had to persuade people to give them lifts, food, drink and shelter.  They had an idea where they were heading which they had broken down into more achievable milestones. Persistence had paid off – when I met them they had been stuck for four hours which is quite a large proportion of the total time available.  

Life can be like that too – often we don’t know where we’re going but start off by heading in the right general direction. We need to take calculated risks, be resourceful, resilient and persistent.

I don’t know where they got to, but I hope they were successful in their bid to cross the channel. Whatever happened, the charity they were raising money for would have got a boost.

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