The Short, Longer Way vs. The Long, Shorter Way

The Short, Longer Way vs. The Long, Shorter Way

There is a story that is told by Shmuley Boteach in his book called 10 Conversations You Need To Have With Your Children that was taken from the Talmud. This is the story in Shmuley’s own words:

“One day a man was traveling to a city, and he came to a fork in the road. He didn’t know the best way to the city, and he saw a young boy standing at the fork so he asked him, “How do I get to the city?” The boy said, “Well, it depends. Do you want the long, shorter way or the short, longer way?” Now, the average person who hears that question would want the short, longer way—you want what’s easiest first, right? So the man said he wanted the short, longer way, and the boy pointed him in the right direction. The short, longer way took the man straight to the city, but not to one of the city gates. He tried to find his way to the gates, but he got lost, and he even tried to scale the walls. When he couldn’t manage it, he returned to the fork in the road, frustrated, and again addressed the boy. “Didn’t you say this path was shorter? he asked. And the boy responded, “And didn’t I also say that it was longer?” The boy pointed him in a different direction this time, the long, shorter way, which was somewhat more roundabout, and did indeed take longer, but it led the man straight to the gate. “

This story reminds me of two boys that have influenced my life in a tremendous way.

Their names are Tom and Joe (names have been changed). When I knew them, I could see that they were so similar, yet so different. Listening to music, bouncing balls back and forth, and splashing in the water were the activities they both loved. Yet beyond that, their lives were very different. Tom was making excellent strides in his reading abilities and in many ways reading at his grade level. He loved to play on the computer and he could eat many different foods. He didn’t like a lot of food like many kids, but he would eat them. His favorite food specifically was “McDonalds” chicken nuggets and French Fries along with any kind of cheese pizza. He was learning to play basketball. He could write his ABC’s and many other words. Using the bathroom by himself was a cinch. If he wanted something, he didn’t hesitate to ask for it. He knew what different concepts meant like: up, down, behind, and under. He could sit in a chair nicely like a child should be able to do. He could go to the store and act appropriately like a mother would hope a child would do without screaming and crying hysterically. He liked lots of different movies and was in the process of learning to bathe himself. He could get dressed by himself and he could tie his shoes by himself. Obviously I could go on and on, but I believe I covered the general and important things a child his age should be able to do without a problem.

Now I want to turn your attention to Joe. Like I said earlier, he thoroughly enjoying rolling and bouncing a ball back and forth between himself and another person. Occasionally he had the desire to line blocks up, typically in an organized manner dealing with the shape, size, and color of the blocks. He loved humming to music that he was familiar with and his vocabulary consisted of saying the words: mom, more, milk and he could use sign language to say please. He loved to bang his hand on windows, throw anything he could out of an open car window (which wasn’t so great when it was your big CD case with all of your CD’s in it), and he loved to scream at the top of his lungs all of the time (bottle of Advil please!). He could use a fork only if you were right there helping him. He would only go to the bathroom by himself if you took him. He would eat some food by himself if it was finger food, but he was also very picky about what he would eat and you had to make sure he didn’t throw his plate. Running out the door and into the street was something that would happen if you were not watching him like an eagle, and when he would get upset, he would throw things and bite himself.

Before you read any further I want you to imagine in your minds from what I have said what ages you believe these boys to be?

The age in which I describe them at this particular stage in their life is as follows: Tom was 6 and Joe was 15.

If both of these boys were typical children, the differences would seem absurd, but the thing is, these boys are not typical children. Yes, the 6 year old seems to have a life full of skills that pretty much match dead on with his age group, but the 15 year old’s skills tend to match the skills of a 2 year old boy.

To further explain, both Tom and Joe were diagnosed with a social disorder called Autism. Many of you may know what Autism is, others may have no idea. I didn’t know when I first started working with Tom. In the world of Autism, the range in the severity of the Autism is very broad. Typically though, children with Autism struggle with the social world. Language is a very difficult concept to grasp, along with all the skills we take for granted like answering and looking at someone when your name is called, reading a book, asking for something you desire, learning to write, using the computer, sitting in a chair, watching a new TV show or movie, eating new foods, going to new places, brushing your teeth, using the bathroom, washing your hands, taking a bath, driving a car, crossing the street by yourself, and understanding many other basic concepts. The list can go on and on, some kids grasp these concepts easier than others, some have difficulty with all of them, some have difficulty with some of them.

Both of these boys are obviously different, but they both have severe Autism and surprisingly Tom’s list of skills and abilities at age 3 years old were very similar to the Joe’s list of skills and abilities at age 15. Tom was diagnosed with Autism at age 2, and from that point on, he was fully immersed in a 24/7 program for children with Autism. I don’t know when Joe was diagnosed, but he unfortunately was not able to go into a program that provided the total learning immersion that children with Autism need, especially at the youngest age possible.

What is heartbreaking and revealing at the same time is the fact that people with severe Autism have very little ability to choose the right path for themselves. For both Joe and Tom, if they could have had their day to day lives their own way, they would have chosen to watch a fan turn, a toilet flush, line up blocks one by one, splash in the water, roll a ball back and forth, and listen to music all day long. They would have been content their entire lives and never have known that greater joy was out there.  

So, at age 2, their lives started down different paths. Tom’s path started down what is known as the long shorter way and Joe’s path started down the path that is known as the short longer way. For Joe’s parents and Tom’s parents, they did not necessarily know exactly where the path that they chose would lead. Tom and Joe were age 2 at two different time periods. The knowledge about Autism and the schools that were available to both of them were different for both Tom and Joe. I am not blaming either parent. I am just showing you that despite what ignorance or knowledge was available, going down a certain path has its consequences, good or bad. History is filled with people going down a certain path out of ignorance and people going down the same path with pure knowledge, but despite the intention behind the choice, the consequence remains the same. For example, doctors in the 1800’s use to prescribe heroin as the “safer” alternative for people to take while they were trying to quit morphine. The doctors finally stopped prescribing this alternative when they realized just how addictive heroin really was. I can only imagine the heartache that was brought into the lives of people who were trying to stop one addictive substance only to end up with another.

As Joe stepped each day on the path that led down the short longer road, his days consisted of doing whatever it took to satisfy his immediate need. Some basic learning did go on and hard work was put in, but for the majority of the time, the biggest concern was to keep him content. If he threw a fit while learning a skill, most of the time whatever he was learning was dropped and he got to do what he wanted instead. He didn’t know anything else and he didn’t desire anything else. He lived day in and day out with this outlook. Now, today, his life represents that of a child who is typically 2 years old.

As Tom stepped each day on the path that led down the long shorter road, his days represented a drastic contrast to Joe’s. The program that was taught by his teachers was also incorporated into his life by his mother and me. It was important to stay consistent and apply the principles for change 24/7. Tom’s days were far from easy for him, his teachers, and his mother. They were filled with many tears of frustration by him and a great deal of resistance. What normally would take a child no effort at all or little effort to learn would take Tom weeks, months, and even a year to accomplish. To get Tom to just hold a pencil and sit in a chair nicely took weeks of constant and consistent effort. It took him an entire year to learn how to write his ABC’s, but this didn’t happen until he mastered sitting in a chair and holding a pencil. Then he had to learn to put the pencil on a piece of paper, then to draw a horizontal line, a vertical line, a diagonal line, and then a circle. After that, his teachers worked with him on each letter. After a year, he finally accomplished writing all of his ABC’s. All the skills he learned were done one small step at a time. A larger task was cut down into much simpler tasks and each task was built on another previous learned task. Each task was filled with constant daily effort, rewards, tears, huge fits, failure after failure, and then slowly each task was mastered. If you were to watch the learning process of getting Tom to view a new movie, and you didn’t know that that was happening, you would think he was being tortured by some invisible creature. Like this example, many of the skills that Tom was taught were viewed by him in the beginning as sheer torture, but in the end, the same skills became some of the greatest sources of joy he had in his life. If Tom had had it his way and the way Joe had it most of the time, he would have stayed within the elements that brought him contentment in the moment, but because of his mother and his teachers, he learned of a new world that brought even greater joy, independence, and a life that was much easier for him and others around him in the long run.

As I think of their lives, I cry out of sadness for what was missed with Joe. I wonder how different his life could look if he only followed the path of the long shorter road. To see what could have been is heartbreaking. I cry with joy when I think of Tom’s example and how drastic of a difference making the most out of our own life can be as long as we do the hard thing in the moment rather than what is easy. To see what he is capable of despite all of the odds against him leaves me with a sense of how much more I am capable of accomplishing that I have not even tapped into. If Tom can accomplish so much against the greatest odds, one small simple step at a time, each and every one of us has no excuse to feel like we can’t do whatever it is we desire to do. It doesn’t matter what challenges we have been given, what matters is what we choose to do despite the challenges we face. In closing, I want to share with you what I once heard Denzel Washington say: “Do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do.” I couldn’t agree more.