The Road Trip of Life

I came across a blog entry from Christopher Penn using a road trip analogy to illustrate the differences between vision, strategy and tactics, and, loving road trips but also knowing how they can sometimes go wrong, it provoked me into thinking about life.

 

Briefly, here is the analogy:

• vision = knowing why you're going
• strategy = knowing where you're going (that is, the destination)
• tactics = having the map which shows ways to get from here to there

 I like road trips, partly because I always learn something when I hit the road; and so this appeals to me.  I'm thinking about how it also helps demonstrate some of the things to watch out for in the strategic plan of everyday life.

A strategic plan is like a battle plan: you are putting together the best plan you know how to make in order to maximize your chances for victory. With a battle plan, it may be life and death; with a strategic plan, it's usually not quite so dire, but definitely can be success or failure for your endeavor. So, how best to approach it? As a warrior!

Or, in this case, as a road warrior.
Starting from the bottom with tactics: when you're on a road trip and you run into a detour, what happens?  You go out of your way, first of all, adding time and miles - energy expenditure.  Second, you may get lost.  Third, you may get distracted by what you find on your detour, spending more time than you intended.  Fourth, you may get so very distracted by the entrancing things on your detour that you completely lose sight of your original destination and purpose, and either get completely lost or just decide to stay there.

Not all of these are bad outcomes.  Sometimes, you have created your particular strategy (where you're going) or even vision (why you're going) from a place of ignorance: you simply didn't know a better reason or place existed.  Well, now your detour has shown you that it does.  Are you going to stick to your original plan even though you now know something much better, more effective exists?  A good warrior will not.

On the other hand, it is also completely possible to become so immersed in details - follow this detour sign, then that, turn left here and left again then right, now where the heck are we? - that you lose sight of the bigger picture - the ultimate destination.  You get lost, end up going in the opposite direction from your desired destination.  This is astonishingly easy to do in life.  In the satisfying of the moment-to-moment wants, or needs, or apparent needs, one can begin to make decisions which are not guided by the larger strategy and do not actually lead one to the desired destination - though they may make us momentarily more comfortable or happy or less distressed.

As I look at the times (and there are plenty) when I've gotten off track, they can certainly be characterized in this way: lost sight of the destination, started making decisions based on the wrong priorities.