About ten years ago I read a short article online somewhere (probably just a couple of paragraphs) about a man and his father. Something the father told him when he was young shaped his decisions about who he wanted to be. It made an impression on me, and I've since tried searching for it on the internet, but with no luck. Any help to identify the short article would be appreciated!!
At the end of a walk through the snow, a father looked back with his son, and showed him the footsteps each of them had made in the snow. The father's steps were direct and purposeful, and lead directly to where they were now. On the other hand, the son's steps wandered to and fro, exploring this, walking along a fence for a while, looking at that, and were not at all direct.
The father tried to use this as a lesson to teach his son to always be purposeful, direct, and decisive in life. At that moment, the son decided that that was exactly how he was not going to lead his life, but would allow himself to be thrilled by any interesting distractions that came along in life, in spite of perhaps having made other plans.
