Recently divorced Frances goes to Italy to get away from her sadness. While in Tuscany she gets the inspiration, partly through bird poop, to buy a villa. Buyer’s remorse sets in almost immediately. She turns to her real estate agent for help with a snake she is convinced is making a home in her bedroom. Being the wise man he is he can see she is afraid. She’s afriad of snakes, and her broken down old house, and being alone forever. He turns to her and says:
“Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.”
Frances understands. In life we want things, irrational things, like a house in Tuscany and simple things, like someone to love. She can’t imagine how she has landed in Italy and how it could be remotely possible that this is right where she should be to allow the rest of her life to unfold.
Stephen Covey says we must begin with the end in mind. We have to decide what want first then plan the path to getting there. Sometimes a house in Tuscany is just a house, sometimes it is an invitation to the life we want to live. In our lives we can’t always see how we’re going to get there, but you have to still keep going. You have to keep your eyes on the horizon.
How do you have the courage to keep moving even when there seems like there will never be a train that can make the journey to where you want to go?