It was a defining moment in my life. Normally, defining moments are things like marriage, graduations, new jobs, new homes, and the birth of a baby. I had those too, but this moment was more mundane and just as impactful.

I had taken an early morning flight into the VA area for business. I got my rental car and started out for my meeting. It wasn’t anything new. At that point in life I was taking flights regularly for business. I quickly found myself driving in 6 lanes of traffic. “Fuck” I thought to myself. I was in the wrong lane and was going to miss the transition. My whole mind and body was a ball of stress at that point. And that is when it happened. I laughed at my ridiculousness. You see, even if I missed the transition or the exit I would have the opportunity to shift or change, get off the next exit and try again or try a different route. At the end of the day it truly didn’t matter.

I was alone in my car, in the wrong lane, laughing at myself. Why was I so caught up in this human experience that I was allowing a missed exit or transition to create this level of stress? It didn’t matter. I could try again, or try differently, it didn’t matter.

Like I said, it was a defining moment for me. It was the moment when I decided that I could drive anywhere I wanted without worrying about it. You can drop me anywhere and I know that I can drive there.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized this was a metaphor for life and I could apply this example to almost everything in life.