Part 2 - How To Navigate Our Eternal Road

As we look out on the horizon of our life, we see a vast ocean of opportunity and choices. What is the best destination? What route should I take? At what speed should I travel? What time will I arrive? All questions that need to be asked as we seek to plot out our Eternal Path on our Life Charts.

Before I continue, I want first to make sure to acknowledge and thank Vikalp Dubey for inspiring this follow up piece to my original article Seeking our Enternal Road. Your comment about how to select the path and how to navigate it was so right on I took up the challenge to write this article in response.

What Is The Best Destination?

Western society leads us to believe that the only answer to this question is fortune and fame. Many Asian cultures have parents select a path for their children very early in life and then place incredible pressure on them to achieve the goal they selected. In other cultures like in India, your choices can be limited based on your families standing in their Caste system.

So which one is right?

Good luck figuring this out as it is the question humans have been working on since the dawn of time. Which in sorts is an answer as no human knows the "perfect" destination of life and therefore has no right to determine yours.

So don't stress out about the destination. Instead work to pick a goal that you feel called by God, or whatever North Star you use, and go after it with all your ability.

What Route Should I Take?

It is said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Did you know this is only the case on flat surfaces? On a sphere, like the earth, this saying breaks down quickly. In life, it is very much the same thing. We can see a clear path to take that will get us to our destination the fastest, but quickly we run into issues. This is why we must plan.

As another saying goes, "If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail." - Benjamin Franklin. A carefully laid out plan allows us to look ahead and see obstacles that may come in our way and make a course correction far in advance. Allowing us to make more informed choices and create backup plans for things like a job with an underfunded start-up company, leaving college before we graduate, or even having children and getting married.

My point here is your route should be well thought threw with multiple options laid out at specific milestones along the way. To accomplish this, I strongly encourage you to read the book "Vivid Vision" by my good friend Cameron Herold and apply this practice to your life. Doing this myself has changed everything for me as now I have a way to measure my success and failures along my path. It has become my depth gage to ensure I do not run ashore as I travel down my route.

At What Speed Should I Travel?

How many times have we all heard that life goes by far too fast? The funny part is that all of this is created by our self-inflicted want to have everything we are working toward be here right now.

The speed in which we travel to our destination is all a matter of one essential item:

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT?

When a ship wants to travel faster, it must divest itself of weight to ride higher in the water. The ability to go down your path more quickly works the same way. The more speed you want, the more you have to give up. Things like time with your family, ability to have children, time with friends, the ability to buy a home or car, and even in some cases the chance to get married (or stay married).

Speed of travel is a "nice" way to say ambition. You need to figure this out VERY early on as your ambition can hurt many people if you are not careful. Trust me on this one I am living proof of what happens when you try to travel to fast with too much weight on your ship!

What Time Will I Arrive?

If you plotted out your Vivid Vision carefully, you actually could know this answer with scary accuracy (if you really want to know at all). I say it in this way as all too often; I have watched friends and family focus so hard on accomplishing a life goal that they miss everything going on around them.

If you focus your life so precisely on the destination, you have an excellent chance of reaching it, but as I mentioned above, at what cost. Rather than focus on when you will arrive instead focus on what is happening around you now and be in the moment. Enjoy the freedom that comes with being on a plan that you are living and accomplishing. The reward that comes in the ability to adjust course at any time to allow in new experiences and people (weight on your boat).

If you can live a life that has a destination and a well-charted route you have figured out 50% of life. The other 50% is now based on the pressure (speed) and focus (time) you place on your self to get to your destination.

My suggestion to all of you reading this is to work on the first 50% destination and route and let life figure out the other 50%. This will allow you to be in the here an now and live a great life all while having a measurement to ensure you do stay nearby your course you set out.

To Your Success & Prosperity,

Michael McMillan