Life provides many opportunities for road trips! Trips can be taken on land, on water, in the air or just in our minds. They can take us to faraway places, on new adventures or relive areas that we have already been, even when we remain at home. Road trips can be fun. Some can be dangerous. Others may be painful. And there are many times when clarity comes due to where we are, the quiet we are experiencing the solitude provided by the journey. Transparency, however, generally only occurs if we have open eyes and ears, and that depends on how we perceive and live out our circumstances.
A previously written Cornerstone Moment happened at the beginning of a 2,000-mile driving adventure for me where I conducted business, visited dear friends and family and spent nearly 30 hours alone in my SUV. There was ample time to think about things during those hours as some of the highways lacked mobile phone connectivity. Because of so much solo driving time, I was able to make several decisions that will change my future. Had I not had that time, I am not confident that I would have allowed myself to become distraction-free long enough to have that type of clear thinking. The areas of life where I made decisions included business, health, relationship and even future dwelling possibilities.
I have a couple of friends who are on separate road trips right now. One is related to gainful and enjoyable employment, and the other has to do with grieving the loss of a loved one. My involvement in their lives provides an interesting outside perspective as I listen, consult and console them through their separate travels. Both situations are challenging. One, the grieving friend, is experiencing acute emotional pain that will soon hopefully subside. With that sometimes comes a lack of motivation to carry on and heaviness that can only result from such a time as this.
The other who has an employment challenge is contending with financial difficulties that they are very unaccustomed to and struggling to find direction and vocational purpose. The mental and emotional toll that can take is hard to imagine unless you have gone through a similar situation. One’s confidence can suffer, and even forms of depression can set in when a person finds themselves in this position.
If you have encountered one or both of the difficult times in life just mentioned, think back to how it felt. I am sure you feel a twinge of those unsettling sensations that you wrestled with during those periods. I have never experienced extended periods of employment difficulties and very thankful for that, but during a short period when that unexpectedly occurred, I remember as if yesterday the anxiety that I experienced. My family depended on me, and we had no backup to get us through. My immediate response erupted from the panic and hurt that I felt when informed of my status. I felt abandoned and betrayed, not to mention uncertain. My survival instincts kicked in and I made 13 phone calls that afternoon and set up five employment interviews. By Friday, I had a job offer that I accepted the following week. I didn’t allow myself much time to dwell on the negative inertia in my body and mind that emanated from that event. Perhaps there I could have learned by allowing that to occur and taking time to consider possibilities. I tell that story because I wonder how you may have responded if in a similar situation. It also came to mind because it was another two-week road trip that changed my life. Those things happen!
And what about grieving loss and all that that journey entails? The pain puts you in a place that is surreal and very much outside the norms of “everyday” living. Did you ever feel as if you were all alone in the world because of a similar situation where there was a significant loss, and you knew that you were the only one experiencing it at that moment in time? What were you thinking? How did you deal with it? Did you recover entirely or are you still struggling to heal? Did you walk into your pain and allow it to occur or did you get distracted by other things so to mask the sensation in a protectionist manner?
Sometimes running from our feelings can be the worst choice we make. It’s like the previously mentioned unemployment situation. Should we self-examine when we get fired or laid off? Or is it more accessible to run from it and cover it quickly with another “job”? Should we acknowledge that we are hurt, devastated, embarrassed, ashamed or in need of help or pretend it didn’t have much of an impact on us. Forgiving the effect is one thing but trying to own and understand it is quite another. I contend that if you have the courage and create the solitude in that road trip to have a more profound sense for what is occurring, it will benefit you far more than hurrying up life to get out of that space and time and into another. Because we all know that doing the same things over and over and expecting different results always works out, right? I think you know the answer to that question.