Easily Distracted By Rocks

I passed someone on the trail today wearing a shirt that read: “Easily Distracted by Rocks.”

It made me pause mid-call, right as I was spilling out all the reasons life wouldn’t work out before giving it the chance that it could. Without realizing it, I’d shoved my expansive, open-to-all-possibilities self back into a box. Suddenly, old subscriptions—narrow paths, strict rules, one-size-fits-all opportunities—felt easier to cling to than living in the only place that matters: the now.

If the path feels narrower, maybe it just means it’s easier to see what’s ahead.

But here’s the truth: I’ve been stacking rocks in front of open space and calling it preparation—blocking life from surprising me by deciding how far she’s allowed to carry me into the unknown.

The shirt was an attempt at a joke. This is my attempt at meaning.

Back on the call, my mentor asked: Hudson, if the most open, enriching next step fell into your lap—no rocks in the way—what would it feel like?

I said: I don’t know… I guess it would just feel like me.

And just like that, the bulldozer plowed through.

Today I had my interview with a big finance company, for a role I’d been preparing for over a year. My nerves were so bad I sat in purgatory when my interviewer asked for “five more minutes.”

When he finally appeared, he looked at me in my suit and said with a smile: “I’m not going to interview you. Everyone who’s met you in the company already knows and loves who you are. All we want is to make sure you have a place with us.”

The goal was just a summer internship. Now there’s already talk of a full-time offer.

What are my credentials, really? Are they me?

Maybe we only think we’re being responsible when we shrink into what feels manageable. But the most responsible thing might be trusting our own expansion—believing the path is wider than it looks, and that what’s meant for us will find us, even when we’re too busy stacking rocks to notice it coming.

And here’s the reframe: how much easier could life be if, instead of forcing the next step, we simply cleared the doubts and judgments and let what we want find its way straight to our hearts?

Anyways, when life gives you a stupid t-shirt, laugh your way into possibility.