Living life backwards

Our kids were 13, 11, and 9. All 5 of us in a Honda Accord road-trippin to Disneyland. We all had a blast in the Southern California sunshine. Two days in Disney, playing at the beach, swimming at the hotel. It was all an epic trip and great memories. It also sucked. I remember on the way home, after being on the go for several days straight, I was exhausted…..and grumpy. Four of the car’s passengers wanted to take a small detour to Hollywood. One of us didn’t. Four of us were laughing and playing road games. One of us wasn’t. Four were having fun and enjoying the journey. One of us was not. One of was tired, stressed out with SoCal traffic, and definitely not excited about the long drive home. In my defense, I do have to say this was before we had Siri and Google maps. We had a huge paper map to figure out the complex system of freeways and my copilot, well…..she has many gifts and is an amazing wife, mom, and Mimi. However, navigation is not one of her gifts. It’s actually more like her cryptonite. I remember sitting on the curb in a parking lot, in a mostly deserted town about an hour off course, pouting like a spoiled toddler. It was not my finest moment.

I’ve said many times that Google maps has saved many marriages and family vacations. We didn’t have it on that trip, but the principle is saving me in more ways than I can even express. The principle is this; you have to know where you want to end up in order to have clear directions of how to get there. If you simply look at where you are in life and try to navigate from there, you’re bound to get lost almost every time. Looking ahead, find the destination where you want to end up, and plan your route to get there. My good friend Pete, who passed away several years ago, described this as living life backwards. If you want to end up with a happy marriage, rocking on the porch together at 90 years old with your wife you fell in love with in your teens or twenties, live your life today in a way that will build that relationship over the coming decades. If you picture the end of your life having a houseful of kids and grandkids to love and pass on your legacy to, set your priorities to invest in them now. I regret to say that I certainly haven’t always lived this way. Honestly, I know that I still don’t most of the time. But I want to. I see the value in it and I’m trying to grow in that and get better at it with every passing year. Well, I hope I’m getting better at it.

Life has a way of just sneaking up on us. If we aren’t paying attention, before you know it we’ve veered off course. We can find ourselves, like I did, in the middle of nowhere, pouting, and wondering how we ended up there. I’m finding that the key for me is living intentionally. If I just let life happen, it’s a bit like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I end up crashing through walls, running people off the road, and essentially just going in circles. Living life backwards, with intentionality and focus, helps me to stay on course. Perhaps you have found yourself in similar situations in life, wondering what happened and how you have ended up burned out or broken down. Try taking a step back. Look at the big picture of your life and decide where you want to end up and then map a course based on your desired destination. We’ll still have breakdowns and traffic and perhaps even lose our way at times. But hopefully, we can minimize the impact by being ever-mindful of where we’re going so we can correct our course quickly and avoid the catastrophe ahead.

Finally, I will say this. When you find yourself off course, it’s never too late to turn around. You’ve never strayed too far to choose a new path for your life. Never. If you’re driving down the freeway and have a tire blow out, you get out of the car, put on the spare and continue on your journey. You don’t get out and slash the other three tires. If you screw up in life, don’t self-sabotage by screwing up more. Own the mistake. Learn from it. And move on with life. Sitting on the side of the road pouting will never get you where you want to go. Live life backwards and you’ll find your way back home.