31 Days {Day 11} – Change Your Direction

Last week, I was driving B. to cheerleading practice at a new gymnastics center. I had never been there before, so I was using the GPS on my phone and following Siri’s directions. However, partway into the drive, I realized that I while I hadn’t been to the gymnastics center before, I had been recently been to a store nearby it. I also realized that I knew a different way to get to there, one that contradicted Siri and her map. So I began ignoring Siri’s directions and making new turns. And Siri started yelling at me. Ok, I know she doesn’t really yell, but she did sound very insistent, instructing me to “Return to the route.” She was definitely unhappy with my new direction.

As nice as it would be to start down a path in life and never veer from it, there are times when we want or need to change direction. Maybe we’ve simply changed our minds about the direction we were headed or maybe we’ve begun to realize that the path we chose isn’t working out the way we expected. And so we stray from the path and begin to head in a new direction.

That’s often when our own inner Siri-like voice speaks up. She tells us that we’re going the wrong way. She urges us to return to the original path. The further we get from our initial path, the more upset our inner Siri becomes. And as our inner Siri yells at us to “return to the route”, we begin to doubt ourselves, wondering if our decision to change directions was the right one.

Before you sheepishly head back to the original path, ask yourself what your inner Siri is really upset about. Are you really headed in the wrong direction? Maybe you did get temporarily turned around and lost. If so, then heed your inner Siri’s requests and return to the original route. But maybe your new direction is actually the right one. Sometimes we make a decision to change directions and then we panic. We worry that we’ve made a mistake, that we’ll get completely lost and unable to find our way again. The new path feels unfamiliar and that newness makes us feel uneasy. Sometimes our inner Siri just needs us to take a few deep breaths and offer some words of reassurance. Anything new is going to feel strange and uncomfortable in the beginning. That doesn’t mean you made a mistake.

As I drove to the gymnastics center, I continued to follow my own directions. And Siri continued to yell at me. I guess I could have listened to her. I could have ignored my own instincts and returned to her path. But instead, I followed my instincts and continued in my new direction. And I turned Siri off.