“I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
American hunter and explorer, Daniel Boone, was born on this day in 1734. (died 1820)
Unlike Mr. Boone, I have horror stories of being lost.
Horror. Stories.
One which still makes me cringe is being late to a friend’s wedding. That’s bad enough. It’s more bad when you’re the vocalist.
It was more than 20 years ago and it still horrifies me.
The friend, on the other hand, laughs about it. And, if she reads this, she’ll laugh again.
Fortunately these days most of us have some sort of GPS system. Although that’s not always reliable.
Last week on the way to a new rehearsal location, multiple GPS systems took multiple cast members to an open field.
“You have reached your destination.”
Um, no, we haven’t.
Life’s like that isn’t it? Sometimes you get to where you think you’re going and you’re either not there, or it’s not what you thought it would be.
Thus the confusion.
How did we ever get anywhere before GPS?
Well, for one, see the wedding story above. Or not.
I used to keep maps in the car for just such purposes. Those were particularly important for when I was doing campaign advance.
Although, they also were not fail-safe. Or maybe it’s me that isn’t fail-safe.
I once got the candidate and the entire campaign team lost on the way to a fundraiser. Only slightly less horrifying than the wedding story, particularly when I gave the quite-irritated campaign consultant the directions as provided to me and said “tell me what I did wrong.”
He couldn’t. Which may be the only reason I didn’t lose that job.
We lost that election, although it had little if anything to do with missing the fundraiser.
And, trust me, I wasn’t confused about the fact that I knew early on we were going to lose.
That was the last campaign I worked on as full-time staff. I’ve volunteered since then but made a definite choice to not rely on that as my income. Granted, I have friends who have made that their career, and who have done it quite successfully.
I’m not sure where I’m going with the post. I don’t think I’m lost, but I would not dismiss the possibility that I may be confused.
Maybe the point is that if we have somewhere we need to be or something we want to accomplish that we need to be clear on the directions before we set out.
It’s not likely we’ll be explorers like Daniel Boone. Especially in this country and even more so on the East Coast. There are very few accessible areas where someone has not gone before to blaze a trail.
I’ve been sort of lost on the Appalachian Trail before, although it’s pretty clearly marked. For a few fleeting weeks during my senior year of college I talked with some friends about hiking the trail from Georgia to Maine. That one didn’t stay on my bucket list. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew it would never happen.
Not to worry, I still plan to hike part of the Canyon.
EDITOR’S NOTE: So, whilst researching another post I found a different birthdate for Daniel Boone (November 2nd). Regardless the quote was his…even if I was/am confused.
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