Take the Backroads Home

Mitch Arnold • August 27, 2024

There are 438 miles between Scottsbluff, NE and my house, and that number doesn’t change whether you take the interstate or a much more rural route on two-lane highways. My navigation system also told me that I would add approximately 47 minutes to my trip, if I stayed off the interstate, so I had a choice to make.


Like most, I find rural travel much less stressful than interstate driving. Additionally, I knew that we would enjoy some beautiful scenery if we took the backroads home. Still, facing approximately seven hours behind the wheel on a Sunday, especially after not sleeping particularly well on Friday and Saturday, was daunting, and it was tempting to shorten the trip by sticking to the interstate.


We often miss out on life’s simple pleasures, when we rush from one point to another. We speed through meal preparation to minimize our time in the kitchen, costing ourselves a chance to enjoy healthy creative cuisine. We rush through conversations with family and friends, prioritizing function over depth. We aimlessly scroll through our phones, forsaking the opportunity for quiet thought.


When we subjugate where we’re at and what’s around us for the expediency of what’s next, we introduce unnecessary stress into our lives. That stress not only has harmful physical effects, it also blinds us to opportunities to savor the moment. Now in my mid-50s, I am much more aware of how the small choices I make in life affect the stress that I feel in life and how that affects those around me. Plus, I want to take a little extra time to savor life’s fleeting moments.


Over the years, I’ve learned that time will pass, regardless of our efforts to control it. It’s up to us to use that time in a way that leaves us fulfilled and allows us to be at our best. To that point, it had been 13 years since I had been on those backroads. A little quick math told me that I was 41 back then, and if I wait another 13 years, I’ll be 67 before I touched Highway 2 in Nebraska’s Panhandle.


Conversely, it’s hard to even imagine the number of hours I have spent driving on the interstate. In fact, I’ve spent more than 40 hours on interstates on three separate trips out west in just the past two months. While I’m thankful that I can cover 500 or more miles in just one day of driving, it seemed like it was time to actually enjoy some of those hours, so I steered onto Highway 26 and headed east to meet up with Highway 2. Had I chosen the interstate, I would have been surrounded by other vehicles for most of the trip. On this trip, however, there were times that I went 15 to 20 minutes without seeing another car. Rather than speeding down the interstate with white knuckles, while grumbling about orange construction cones and slow drivers in the fast lane, I felt like I was sitting in my recliner enjoying the scenery around me.


Ironically, we left Scottsbluff in dense fog, so we didn’t see any of the amazing natural formations just east of town, and then it rained. In fact, it rained for much of the first three hours of the trip, and then intermittently as we neared Omaha. Obviously, that wasn’t how I imagined the trip would go. However, even those less-than-ideal conditions didn’t rattle my inner peace.


Because the two-lane highway required less attention and evoked far less agitation than the interstate, I was able to enjoy deep conversations with my wife and adult son, who were along for the ride. Whereas I typically count down miles and minutes on a long interstate drive, I finished the trip relaxed and even took a short side trip through a neighborhood that my son had recently discovered and wanted to show me.


When the pace of your life seems harried, and you feel stress creeping in, step back for a minute and consider how you can improve all of that with a simple change or two. While it’s not always possible to choose the less stressful option, when it is, you should always take the backroads home.

Live – Love – Repeat

By Mitch Arnold • April 6, 2025
I lost a close friend to cancer last month, and though sadness will always linger, it’s overshadowed by the gratitude I have for his friendship. Yes, his early death seemed unfair, unusually cruel and senseless, but his approach to life, especially during the dire situation of his last months, was nothing short of inspiring. Jamie was only 47, which is about eight years younger than me. He was a husband and father of three young girls who have yet to reach high school. He was also an integral part of a very close and loving family. Because he was one of those guys who made the world a better place everywhere he went, his network of friends was massive. Always a positive and cheerful person, he became even more so after his stage four cancer diagnosis. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when he called me with that crushing news, on a Sunday afternoon, a little more than six months ago. While I was shocked, he was remarkably upbeat. He said that he felt good, and that he had a plan to attack the cancer. “I’ll be OK,” he reassured me, before hanging up. Still, I called him the next day. I had to make sure that he was really OK and to reassure myself that I was doing everything I could do as a friend. “Just pray,” he said, when I asked him if there was any way that I could help. He went on to tell me how he had begun to embrace religion, even before his diagnosis, and that a priest was helping him sort out his emotions and stay positive. Also on his side were all of the people – friends and family alike – who loved him. He said that so many people were praying for him and doing nice things for his family that it was almost overwhelming, but that he appreciated each and every one. He told me that he could feel the effects of all of those prayers, and that it was helping. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to recover, and cancer won, which left many of us sad and searching for answers. My initial emotions were heavy on the frustration and sadness of losing a friend way too early, but the more that I thought about Jamie, the less that I thought about his final battle. Eventually, I focused less on his death and more on his life. Jamie’s time with us was full of life and love, and cancer shined a huge spotlight on that. Even during that challenging time, he was the same cheerful person who was more interested in the people around him than he was of his own struggles. As we gathered to celebrate his life, there were smiles and laughter among the tears. Because he lived so fully and loved so deeply, we all had happy stories to tell and memories to embrace. Jamie showed me many things through our years of friendship. First and foremost, he showed me that it’s important to live every day to its fullest. No matter what he was doing, he was doing it with a smile and genuine enthusiasm. He seized every possible opportunity to enjoy life, even during those hard months at the end. Second, he showed me the power of love. He cared deeply about his friends and family, and he not only said it, but he showed it too. That love was reciprocated, especially when the end was near.  Jamie set a standard that we should all aspire to. If we can treat every day as a gift to be treasured, and seize every opportunity to show love to those around us, we can make the world around us a better place, just like Jamie did.

The Importance of Imagining Brighter Days

By Mitch Arnold • March 2, 2025
Nebraskans experienced what seemed like an entire winter in two weeks last month. Those, like me, who have been around for decades of Nebraska winters recognize that winter can be much harsher and last a lot longer, but for those two weeks, winter misery prevailed.  Then, it suddenly changed. In just a few days, we went from sub-zero overnight temperatures to temperatures in the sixties. Many areas experienced 70-plus temperature changes from one week to the next. The change was remarkable, and it not only melted the snow and ice, it also quickly erased our memories of the misery we felt just days before. Life is often like that. We can get so bogged down in difficult times that we can’t even imagine brighter days. Then, when brighter days happen, our memories mercifully tamp out the misery. The challenge is to resist unhappiness and frustration during trying times, and to remind ourselves that brighter days are ahead. It’s an exercise in hope, and one that’s crucial to our happiness, especially when things are not working out the way that we want them to. Amid the miserable weather of those two weeks, while the snow and ice kept me homebound, I slipped and fell when getting out of the shower. That left me with a diagonal slash across my back, sprained finger and deep bruising on my right hip and foot. Fortunately, no emergency room visit was needed this time, and I was able to continue on with my day and week, albeit much sorer and slower than usual. The worst of the injuries happened to my already weak right side, and resulted in that leg being much tighter than it normally is, which made getting around even more challenging than it already was. As always, I don’t share these challenges looking for sympathy. Rather, I want to acknowledge the occasional suffering that happens behind the scenes for all of us. Most of us try to put on a brave face and keep our problems behind closed doors, but everyone endures tough times at one time or another. It’s during those times that we need to find hope and optimism, and the best way to find hope and optimism is to focus on brighter days ahead. Like the weather, our fortunes can quickly change. I focused on that as ice and injury kept me homebound. I’ve been injured before and stuck at home by weather before, but rarely at the same time. In fact, the timing was quite convenient. Since the weather was already keeping me in, I could use that time to heal. Admittedly, those days were not without frustration and sadness, but I fought off those feelings with hope and optimism. Hope and optimism are almost always more elusive during difficult times, when we need them the most. That’s why we must make a concerted effort to summon them. If we don’t, we risk unnecessarily prolonging misery. As the weather improved, so did my body, like it had hundreds of times before. Before long, I was back doing the things I normally do, and my confidence level inched forward, as I proved to myself that I could survive another challenge and the brighter days I imagined came to be. If you are going through a difficult time, remind yourself that tough times never last, and that brighter days are ahead. If you do that enough, it becomes a defense mechanism that you can refine and use each time your days darken.
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