When I was a young person, coming out of high school I felt a little lost. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, and the idea of continuing with school didn't seem like the right fit. Being young and full of ego (and very little age-derived wisdom), I rationalized that I could get ahead of those in my own age bracket by getting a head-start in the job market, while they all pursued a waste-of-time university degree in some prosaic subject. So I enlisted myself with a car sales job and then a temp. agency and worked in various fields. I was an Accountant at McDonald's headquarters for a stint; I helped retrieve and archive State Farm's aged claims files for a while and did a packaging sort of job at IBM. I even managed the printing presses at Bristol Meyers for a while and happily have all my fingers still. Some of the temp jobs lasted longer than others, and some resulted in various job offers, of which I took none. I viewed my task as surfing the buffet of choices in front of me, and with few responsibilities and little in terms of expense, I was choosy.
After almost two years of this (some roles last many months), I grew tired of the lowest rung on the ladder view of life, and decided I needed a change of pace. I saved up some $$ and a close friend and I went to spend a glorious young person's summer backpacking in Europe. BTW, it's called a summer backpacking as you don't want to do it when we did - starting in February. To suggest it was cold and damp would be an understatement. I fondly recall a 48 hour period travelling from Brighton to Algeciras in Spain in search of heat. All we found there instead were storm-drenched fellow young Morocco-bound tourists and locals trying to unload their heroin stashes. When I left on that trip, I was pretty certain I'd made a mistake by avoiding a post secondary education, and a few months in Europe only cemented that opinion.
Since then, I've become acutely aware of that feeling of lost, and how good it seems when you make a decision to go forward (in any direction). Since my very early twenties and that time in my life, I've been lost a couple more times, and arguably am again at present. While the temptation to do something (anything!) is great, I have learned that any old decision, any old direction doesn't deliver that found feeling. It presents itself as a good choice - and one you have to see for yourself. The degree to which something feels right is also driven by how badly you want it I think. Just as a great meal doesn't seem as tasty on an already full belly, the appreciation of finding the pathway again isn't as great if you're already engaged on it.
Now, I think there's merit in being lost occasionally. It acts (for me anyways) as a reset button, a time to take stock and assess where you are. Yes, you're standing still when it happens, and yes, you're making no progress towards an identified goal. It can seem lazy, and self indulgent certainly. However I also am mildly sympathetic to the macro-concept that there's a pathway that we're on. I prefer to think of this as a vector of sorts, a direction where I can determine speed and heading and progress, moreso than a pre-determined set of steps we are each experiencing. On this vector of our lives, we can and will deviate on purpose or by accident, and our responsibility to ourselves is to try to stay true to where we think we should be going. We consult with friends, family and those we trust for their opinions, but ultimately the choices are our own (or if you believe in it - some sense of divine providence). To stop the everyday march of time in our lives and take a direction heading isn't a bad thing. I'm fortunate to be able to do that, and I see that, knowing that not everyone is in that position. For those that are 100% certain of their path and are chewing their way through it to achieve something specific, well, this must seem like some middle age wobbliness or worse, but to that I can only offer a smile if your pathway is that clear to you.
So, while I'm stopped at yet another of life's intersections, I plan to step off the road and smell the flowers on the verge, to enjoy this moment of being lost realizing that in the end it will be temporary and it can also be quite pleasant.
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