A Letter from Chris Suarez

OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO

This week I was cleaning out some bookshelves to make some room for some new books. I’ve had stacks of books on my home office floor for some time, and I wanted to get them a new home on the shelf. I imagine myself as an old man living in a cabin with every wall being bookshelves, and stacks of books everywhere. We’ll see if my wife keeps me.

In my office, I have had a few shelves dedicated to some of my favorite children’s books - books I had as a child, that I kept for my own daughters - and have moved with me across the country over the years to each house we have lived in. I came across one of my favorite Theodor Geisel books - or his more recognized name - Dr. Seuss. One of my most read Seuss books was “Oh, The Places You’ll Go”. The irony was not lost on me as I looked at the cover of the book then looked at the PLACE backpack on the floor, the PLACE sweatshirt I was wearing, the PLACE hat on my head, and the PLACE cup that my tea was steeping in on my desk.

As I flipped through the pages of the book, looked at the pictures, and read the poetry, I couldn’t help but think about how it is the places we decide we will go that lead us into incredible relationships, introduce us to new thinking, deliver brand new experiences, and change us as individuals. It isn’t as much the actual arrival at the destination that even matters, but just setting our sights on the place, and following the right path. Seuss acknowledges that things will happen along the path throughout the book. At times we won’t be in the lead or at the top. At times we will get mixed up.  At times things won’t go as quickly as we’d like them to. At times others will do things better than us.

So what do we do?  Decide where you are headed - the place you’d like to be. And then?

Seuss says:

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

And remember that Life's

A Great Balancing Act.

We won’t take every step perfectly.  At times we feel out of balance and wonder if we are losing our footing. We will. It will happen. But it doesn’t mean we are lost. It doesn’t mean we won’t get to our place. Too often our focus is so much on where we think we want to be, that we lose the enjoyment of the journey, we miss turns that could have led to opportunity, and we get discouraged before we get there.

James Clear says that the destination is potentially irrelevant. He wrote, “You only need to know the direction, not the destination. The direction is enough to make the next choice.”

With a picture of where we want to go painted in our mind, all we need is the right direction. 

Interestingly, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” was the last book that Dr. Seuss published before his death.  It has become the most sold of all of his books and almost represents a compilation of both his lessons and his life wrapped up in a single story.  It served as a lesson for me as a kid and a lesson twenty five years later for me as an adult.

It is a reminder not to set a concrete end goal. It is a reminder to not work for years simply to achieve a result. It is a reminder to point yourself in the right direction and enjoy the journey. As Dr. Seuss said in his final book:

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself 

Any direction you choose.

Clearly, there are some good lessons in all those books on our shelves.

Chris