How colors can illuminate our choices as we step into the New Year

One afternoon, walking alone through Forest Park near my home in Portland, Oregon, I became so consumed by questions about the future that I reached an intersection of three trails and had no idea which one led back to my car.

At midlife, after putting my career on hold to raise my children, I was watching them prepare to leave home. The role that had organized my life was changing, and I had no clear picture of what came next.

Standing there among the trees, I cried aloud:

“Why is it that all the wisdom I have collected over my lifetime is never accessible when I actually need it?”

Then a trail sign caught the light, and I knew it was the way back.

Looking again at the three intersecting trails, I wondered: What if I could make a map of the wisdom I had received over my lifetime—something I could see and use when overwhelmed, exhausted, or uncertain about my next step?

When I returned home, I did what I knew how to do. I took out my color markers and began to draw.

For more than 25 years as a market researcher, I had used bright, color-coded charts........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)