3. Know Where you Are

Lesson: Know where you are in life relative to where you want to be.

I watched the 22 bus drive by... without me. The next bus wasn't coming until another 20 minutes, and I actually had to be someplace on time.

I walked 3 blocks, hopped on the 'T' Train, got off on Church, and hopped on the 22. I arrived at my destination to find that I was in the wrong place. I hopped on the 1 bus, and arrived 2 minutes before the speaker began.



If this had been 6 months ago, I would have had to wait 20 minutes (I wouldn't have known an alternative route) only to go home. I would have got to my original destination and would have had no idea how to get to the next place, the place I needed to be all along. Living in SF, using various bus routes, paying attention to street names, and learning how to read maps has greatly enabled me to sufficiently navigate around the city.

When you take the bus, you can go on Google Maps and it will tell you how to get from point A to point B via public transportation. You will take note of where stores are that you know you will eventually need to visit. You will see where bus lines intersect. You will see where the shady parts of the city are. Then you begin to come up with your own directions. You ride on lines just to see where they will take you. The vastness of the city begins to shrink as you realize how everything is connected.

That is how life is. More specifically, that is how transitioning into adulthood is. The vision of the "good life" (however one defines it) is always on the horizon, but there are so many steps one must take to get there. Most things are never obtained easily in one clear shot. We can miss opportunities to get where we need to be. We might arrive at our destination to find that it is not where we wanted to be in life.

Life is truly a journey with many unexpected twist and turns, missed opportunities, and good finds.

Always persist. I always have hope. Always have faith. Always know that where you are is not where you will end. Keep pressing towards your goal and more often than not, you will get to your destination. Your comfort zone will expand. You will go farther than you ever thought you will. You will be able to give strangers directions. And one day you will realize, you reached your intend destination, got farther than you ever expected, and you notice you haven't been lost in a very long time.