I visited Park City in Utah with my family, pretty recently. It was a quaint little city and it was such a good trip, overall. One of the activities we did while there was horseback riding, which I’m not a huge fan of, but I like horses and I like sight-seeing, so I figured I could bear through riding a horse for the appreciation of cute animals and gorgeous sights. However, the experience I got during this excursion was much different than I had originally expected.
The horse they gave me was named Trigger. He was a beautiful horse, and I figured he was a pretty cool guy, considering he had such an edgy name. I was also relieved when he came with no disclaimers from the employees at the stables, unlike my sister’s horse, which was apparently known for eating every blade of grass in sight. Considering my horse had no quirks to worry about, I figured it’d be a pretty smooth ride, and that I could get many quality pictures of the scenery while on a relaxing ride through the surrounding area.
Trigger, however, said “nope.” Though, depending on how you look at it, he could have been like, “you got it, dude.”
The ride started off smoothly, as my family and I filed into a line behind the ranch-worker into the forest area near their stables. I ended up in the back of the line, which I now know was just fine, considering it was actually my horse who wanted to stop and eat all of the blades of grass. I wish I could give the benefit of the doubt to the workers about that little mistake, considering my sister’s horse stopped for grass exponentially less than Trigger did (in this case, exponentially = like, none.) However, since my horse was a nice, dusty brown with a bright, yellow colored mane and tail, and my sister’s horse was a deep brown with a black mane and tail, I’m still not sure how that mix-up could happen. I suppose there could be several reasons, but alas, in that moment, my fate was sealed.
I’m not even exaggerating when I say that every time a tall, tempting piece of plant-life came in Trigger’s path, he took his sweet time to yank it up and gorge on it as if he didn’t eat in months. Seeing as this caused me to lag a good deal behind my family, I followed the tips that they gave my sister when we all assumed her horse would be the source of our inconvenience, which was just to yank the reigns and give him a light kick. So I tried it, and all Trigger did was look back at me with major sass in his eye, and continue to eat until he decided to be done. Basically, I got side-eyed by this horse multiple times in just the span of an hour.
He proceeded to do this throughout the entire ride. No matter how much I tried to get him to stop, there he was, just pulling as much grass as he could without a care in the world about how it affected anyone else. But the thing was, he didn’t lack that far behind. He was always able to catch up with the rest of the crowd. It was really just a mild inconvenience, which would have allowed me to take pictures of the scenery. You know, like I had originally planned.
This got me thinking. Though Trigger was a rebel in all senses of the word, did his rebelliousness really get in my way that much? Or did it only get in my way because I let it? Did the countless stops for food really hurt my experience?
Honestly, it didn’t.
After giving it some thought, I quite admire Trigger for his “screw it” personality. Sure, it felt incredibly inconvenient at the time, but I left with a life lesson from a horse that I wouldn’t have gotten had I not ever seen him. I so desperately wanted to consider him a rebel, but in reality, I wasn’t thinking about anything else other than “wow, this horse really doesn’t want to listen to me.” I got so stuck on that fact that I didn’t try to take advantage of what other opportunities it could have given me. Who knows? Maybe I tried to do exactly what the ranchers would have wanted me to do, but in reality, Trigger might have just been starving, and his “rebel” nature was my opportunity to take in more sights. Maybe he was a classic rebel with a cause, trying to accomplish his mission one plant at a time.
Either way, I want to thank that horse for challenging my thought process more than most humans can.
When was the last time you were given an unexpected life lesson from an event you experienced? Leave me a comment! I’d love to read about it!
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