Turn Right Now!

I was talking to Keegan earlier today about knowing where you’re going. It’s a hard thing, knowing where you’re going. Or, I should say, it’s a hard thing pretending to know where you’re going.

The fact is we humans like to pretend that we know where we’re going. We like to use this pretend knowledge as a way to rationalize the path that we’re currently on. We project our future based on the direction we’re currently facing, and then we proclaim that this result is the direction for us! This result is who we want to be! And look — we’re on our way there right now!

But this is like throwing darts and painting the targets around them afterwards. And it’s not reflective of how our lives actually pan out.

The truth is, we don’t know where we’re going. At best, we have a set of directions for the the path we think we’ll be taking… Life doesn’t like to conform to those directions, though. It’s not like following Google’s GPS instructions — there’s no “Turn right after college” instruction. Rather, life is more like that Allstate commercial where Mayhem shouts “Turn right now!” We never know when we’ll end up turning, legitimate prompting or otherwise.

The directions for our life’s journey are ever-evolving. Each day brings a new series of desires, plans, beliefs, and, consequently, suggested turning points. I’m becoming more and more convinced that we’ll never know where we’re going, but if we continuously reflect on those new suggested turning points, we’ll have a fighting chance at staying on the road.