No one takes the high road by accident

​On this next to last day of 2020, maybe more than ever, people are mapping out their path to a better 2021. The end of the year is always a good time to map out the best road to take to get me where I want to go - the goals and strategies and outcomes - but equally important - I would say more - it's also a good time to decide who I want to be on my way there.

Often, who we are is defined by how we treat people on our way to wherever it is we're going. It's defined by how we interact with others as we pursue what we want for ourselves.

John Maxwell suggests that there are three roads we follow when it comes to the way we treat others:

Low road - we treat people worse than they treat us.
Middle road - we treat people the same as they treat us.
High road - we treat people better than they treat us.

When I read this, and reflected on me, I thought - too often the road I choose is driven more by the person I'm interacting with than the road I've chosen for my life. Like, you're kind of a jerk so I'm going to walk with you on my low road. Or, hey, you've always been good to me, so I'll be good to you - step over hear and let me take you for a walk on my high road. It's beautiful this time of year.

Maxwell is suggesting that's not how it should work. He's suggesting we should choose to travel a road that defines how we engage with others as a way of protecting ourselves from others dictating the road we travel.

Proverbs 19:11 does a great job of defining the high road, I think:

A person’s wisdom yields patience;
it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.

I think a lot of us are good at that in some situations. In a challenging moment in time, we say "I'm going to take the high road here. I'll overlook this one." But I think Maxwell is talking more about building character than he is about building responses to certain people in certain situations.

And if I think about Jesus, after I think about the word love, high road pretty quickly comes to mind. Jesus always seemed to be operating under the philosophy of I'm going to treat you better than you treat me. I mean the guy took the high road hanging on a cross. Not because that's how he was choosing to die, but because that's how he'd always chosen to live.

I like to take simple phrases with me into a new year to help guide and remind me - of where I want to go and who I want to be.

I think high road will be one of those simple phrases this year. As a reminder that no matter where I map out to go in the new year, the high road's the one I want to take to get there.