Driving
There are two types of driving.
First is functional driving, the kind you do when you need to go somewhere, that gets you from A to B in the quickest, most efficient way. Then there's the fun stuff, the driving you do just for the sake of driving.
My wife and I love to explore, to go down "new" roads, follow hitherto unknown paths purely to see what's down there.
If you have the time and fuel who cares if you get lost?
Being lost simply means you don't know where you are yet but, surely, you are meant to be right here, right now in th moment. It may not be the place you intended or imagined you would be but, with no destination, how can you be truly lost?
Having no destination gives a sense of freedom, the knowledge that you can go anywhere, without pressure or constraint.
Perhaps it's all a metaphor for life.
Saying this, there is also value in following set routes; they can be just as rewarding with discoveries all of their own. There is comfort and satisfaction with the familiar but even the familiar can be different and varied.
No matter how many times you may follow a road it will never be the same twice, much like how Heraclitus is credited with saying you can never step into the same river twice. The road conditions will always be changing, there may be different wildlife to observe, the turning of the seasons means the scenery will be ever mutable.
Changing light through time's diurnal passage causes you see things in different ways if you only take the opportunity to notice, while a blanket of fog can go from the beautifully ethereal to truly alien within a matter of moments.
You can know a route like the back of your hand during the day but at night it might as well be another world.
The metaphor gets ever deeper.
# Nicholas Bate says to choose a word for 2020:
Whiteboard it. Write it every day on your planner, put the word on a handful of 3 by 5 cards and place them in strategic places as an ever-present reminder.
He even provides 101 suggestions for our consideration.
I last chose a word for the year in 2018: expand, but things didn't exactly work out as intended.
In light of this and a number of last year's posts I have decided that my word for 2020 is self-compassion.
I intend to be more forgiving of my failings rather than berate myself for them, hopefully journeying on a more constructive path to resolution.
I aim to allow myself time and space to accomplish things instead of consider them a failure if they don't work out immediately.
I want to take better care of me which, in turn, should allow me to take better care of others but must recognise that there is not a simple switch I can flick to make this happen. It will be a gradual process.
I don't let age define me but, as I approach 50, I don't want to enter that decade of my life with much of the emotional baggage I have been carting around, weighing me down and holding me back.
I will still have a lot of the same worries and considerations but will need to become much more stoic in my approach and can only achieve this by going easier on myself, forgiving myself certain things, and realising others are just not my fault.
I think I'd find one word restrictive, so I've chosen three: https://chrislt.art/2020/01/01/my-three-words-for-2020/ :)
I like your word, though, and you'll see I've mentioned kindness to myself and a couple of other themes that are similar to yours in my post.
I hope 2020's a good year for you, Colin.