The plan was to get up early and beat the crowds to The Beehive trail - one of the most iconic hikes in Acadia National Park.
While not exactly El Capitan, it's still a rugged 450 foot climb that involves ladders and rock scrambling - exactly the mix of adrenaline and nature my son and I were looking for.
We hit the road a little early (which in itself is a feat) and as we got into Acadia... traffic. At 7am, the parking lots were full and pickens were slim on the road, but that was for Sand Beach, so we figured we were good.
A mile later, we were basically alone on the road and pulled into a nearly empty parking lot. With no map, no cell signal, and now no plan, we were lost, so we asked a few strangers where the Beehive trailhead was.
Yeah... it was back at Sand Beach. So a choice. Circle back or call an audible?
Standing in a conga line to do the hike sounded less than appealing, so we decided to make the best of our situation.
We should have.
Life can be full of "should haves". We should have beaten the crowds. We should have known where to go. We should have brought a map.
But we didn't. And here we are.
For most of my life, I operated exclusively in the "should have" world (which, by the way, usually means that someone or something else is at fault). You see, I was a 'fix it' guy. The world was full of problems, and I was here to fix them. In the Army. In Corporate America. At home. Which means I'm usually right.
And that's still a big piece of me. Frankly, I got paid to fix problems (and I'm good at it) but while the world of "shoulds" is normal and natural, it's also taxing. And only one of four choices in how we live our life.
Our vacations often have an element of randomeness in them, but this one was especially random. And I knew early on I had a choice in how to experience this prescious time, and it probably wasn't in the world of "should".
Life: To you or for you?
Given the randomness I was expecting, I went to one of my go-to resources - the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership (a superb book by the Conscious Leadership Group) to exolore the four ways of living and leading.
One of those is living a life in cooperation of life and all the circumstances that come our way (like a missed turn and a thousand tourists lining up like ants on a trail).
It didn't matter what happened. What co-creation with life asks of us is: "Why is this happening for me?".
The reality is, I really don't like crowds. So being lost in a nearly empty trailhead near the coast of Maine in Arcadia was looking pretty good. My son and I got our bearings and we started hiking - with pretty much nobody on the trail.
We experienced amazing summits, breathtaking views, a good degree of difficulty in the ascent, and ironically, ended up very close to the Beehive summit- without the crowds.
Rules Unlearned
We all operate on playbooks based on rules and roles that we inherited, accepted, and lived. These rules serve us well - they are the reason we are where we are, and if you're reading this, I'm going to assume you're a successful person.
While our rules serve a purpose, they can also limit us, and they do so invisibly. Left to their own devices, we blindly follow that playbook (like me circling back to Sand Beach because that was "the plan".
What's available from here?
The problem wasn’t that the Beehive was a bad plan.
The problem would have been believing it was the only good plan.
That’s the work of unlearning. Not throwing out everything that got us here, but noticing when an old rule, role, or expectation has quietly become the only way we know how to move.
Sometimes the better question isn’t, “How do I get back to the plan?”
It’s, “What’s available from here?”
That morning, what was available was a nearly empty trail, time with my son, and views we never would have seen if we had circled back.
We didn’t hike the Beehive.
And I’m really glad we didn’t.
That’s what Rules Unlearned is about: noticing the invisible rules shaping how we work, lead, and live, and getting curious about what becomes possible when we choose to write our own rules, or even reinvent the game.
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