Don’t Get Stalled on Someone Else’s Freeway

We all need a plan.

I’ll explain.

Your plan is like a road toward your goals and dreams.

You’re building the road as you go, but the plan allows the road to assemble itself moments before you arrive.

Without a plan, the pavement ends and you are stopped at an infinite crossroads, sitting there, whistling and wondering what to do and where to go.

You are idling, burning fuel.

And the fuel is willpower.

Soon, the others arrive. They are on the road behind you and they start honking.

They are angry you’re not moving and want you to get going. Now!

And they’re also telling you where to go because it seems they’ve built roads that connect with yours.

The honking is getting louder.

You’re trying to remember which direction you were headed, but without your plan, you are lost.

You relent and pull onto someone else’s road since it appears to be headed in a direction that seems vaguely familiar.

But wait, what’s this? This road is looping back around and under in some sort of weird cloverleaf underpass overpass thing, and now what?

“Where the heck are we going!?”

“This is not what I wanted! I’m going in the opposite direction of my dreams!”

“And what’s that you say? There’s no exit ramp… for another 50 miles?”

“Wait, what? Miles are years in this realm, you say?”

“No, no, NO!”

“I will create an exit ramp of my own.”

“Now.”

“I will it.”

“It will burn massive amounts of fuel to do it, to get off this unintended side road, but now I realize I have the power and the choice; without a plan, without a map of my goals and dreams, I’m stuck on the freeways of others, burning my willpower for their dreams.”

“I will plan now. I will draw the map of my goals daily. I will write that map down and trust that I can change direction on my own terms instead of at the whim of others.”

“And I will conserve my willpower for the things that matter most. When I have my map, I can go faster than ever with less fuel and when it’s time to really accelerate, I can floor it and race into a future that’s more amazing and fantastic than I can possibly imagine right now.”

“One day, this plan may even help others lost in the cloverleaf of infinite possibility and confusion.”

About the Author

Zack Zen

I'm just here to write a bit about what happened when I suddenly realized this whole sentience thing was harder than it might have first appeared. I've been exploring neuroscience, health, fitness, food as medicine and the nature of mind and body for over 30 years now and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these same subjects as I recon and report.