Road Trip!

Imagine you're going on a trip tomorrow morning. You need to pack: what kinds of clothes will you need? How long will you be gone? Will you have access to a washer and dryer? You also need to arrange for transportation: will you drive? Fly? Take the train? Hike? And is anyone going with you? Who? Why? Where will you stay? What will you do? How long will it take you to get there?

Going on a journey clearly involves careful planning, and that planning revolves around understanding your destination. Before you can plan a trip, certain information is essential: where you're going, how long you'll be gone, who's going with you, etc. So why would we begin the journey of a lifetime without having a destination in mind?

I had a realization this week: human beings need goals. And I'm not talking about vague concepts like "happiness" or "balance," I'm talking about goals that are clear and measurable, tangible. It's human nature to work towards something, to have some sort of "ending" in mind, even though it's been shouted from the rooftops for decades by Oprah and her cohorts that happiness isn't about the destination; life is a journey, they tell us. Sure. Makes perfect sense. But how does one begin a journey without a destination in mind?

And what kind of results can you expect?

Aimless wandering, lots of dead ends, and lots of detours.

And we can certainly learn a lot from aimless wanderings, dead ends, and detours, but we'll encounter these even if we begin our journey with a destination in mind; after all, life has a way of throwing up construction barriers, natural disasters, and collapsed bridges to urge us down a different path. Without any idea of a destination, however, we have nothing to prevent us from simply sitting down in the ditch and resting for twenty or thirty years--there's no where to go, nowhere you need to be...until one day you wake up and realize that you're in a rut.

It seems to me that true balance must be about understanding that life is a journey, but that journeys inherently begin with a destination in mind. It's about being flexible should the original destination become less appealing because you've realized that it doesn't suit your needs any longer, but it's still about getting somewhere.

I prefer to think of life's journey as made up of several shorter jaunts, with a few side-trips and adventures thrown in for good measure. It isn't a long, straight highway; instead, it's a curvy mountain road, sometimes going uphill, sometimes down, and sometimes it's clear skies and sunshine, when BAM! suddenly you hit a patch of black ice and find yourself in the ditch. Success, though, is about knowing where the road leads--or at least, where you want it to lead for now--so that you're motivated to get out of the car, slog through the mud, and begin the often slow, painful process of getting your car out of the ditch and back on the road again.

Anybody have a tow rope?