So yesterday I was visiting with some family in another city. I borrowed a car since it was pretty far away.
As I was getting ready to go back home, I told my phone to give me directions. At least that’s what I thought I did.
First thing my phone tells me to do is to head north, which is odd, since I live south of this place. But I follow what my phone says, because maybe the phone knows something I don’t know. Perhaps it’s taking me away from a major slowdown or an accident.
So I’m driving for a bit, and in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, this doesn’t feel right. Looking out the window, I’m not seeing any landmarks that tell me I’m headed in the right direction.
But, I keep listening to the voice coming out of my phone, which dutifully tells me that I’m 30 minutes from my destination. Okay, sounds good!
About 35 minutes later, I’m thinking, I should be seeing my city by now. Or least something familiar. But my surroundings are getting downright rural.
So I pull over, and check the phone. Sure enough, it had been leading in the opposite direction from where I wanted to be. And now I was more than an hour from home.
Annoyed, I reprogrammed it to take me in the right direction, double-checked the route, and then headed off again.
All this is a reminder to me to not rely on other outside voices to tell me what to do, when my gut and my senses are telling me the opposite. And that it’s important to avoid the trap of just going and going and going and hoping you are headed in the right direction. Instead, to take a pause, reflect, take a look around, and make sure you are headed in the direction you want to be going.
IMAGE CREDIT: “Back Country Road Sunrise” by Striking Photography by Bo Insogna is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0