Driving to Waxhaw without GPS on can be an adventure for me and anyone riding with me. I’m a bit geographically challenged.
Any time I’m on a trip that involves long stretches on the same road, even if I’ve traveled it countless times, I’ll get lost in my thoughts and suddenly be overcome with a paralyzing fear that I’ve missed my exit. It happened yesterday on I40 after returning my mom to my sister’s house in Old Fort. I’ll look around for something familiar and for several seconds I’ll panic until I recognize a building, an exit sign or something. If I missed the exit I don’t want to drive too far before I get back on the right track.
Life can be like this at times. You get off track. Maybe you don’t realize it for a while until something happens and you like around and don’t recognize anything. I understand that if you’re a type A, goal-setting leader you are always pioneering new territory so the scenery changes often, but take a second and make sure that you’re still on the right track. In your fast paced determination to capture new ground you could have easily jumped tracks or gotten side tracked.
As C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
For the rest of us, we should also pause here at the end of the year to reflect, look around, check the signposts and make sure that we didn’t daydream at the wheel and drift off course. Especially for a man, being in the wrong place is a dangerous thing.
And that can happen if you’re not paying attention.
Onword and Upwords by Dennis Brady 