East 34th Street...or West 34th Street?

We always need to know where we're going don't we? Which train do I take, where do I take it to, which supermarket am I going to shop at, where am I going to sit to drink my soy, decaff, sugar free, vanilla hazelnut cappuccino? Everyday we make such minor choices that map out a route for ourselves without even knowing it.

Some routes that lots of us are aware of, are long term routes. Some of us write them down, and some of us keep that information in the back of our minds, bringing it to the front when times get rough. I have a vaguely drawn map for myself just like everyone else.

However sometimes, I need to remind myself that a long term path is just that - long term.

I start training tomorrow to be a server at what seems to be an exciting casual dining facility. I'm more than happy, I'm ecstatic. I searched for a month and a half in Boston for a job like this and got nothing. I searched for a week in New York and bam - employment time.

Making money is going to be great, and I know waiting tables is going to be an exciting and challenging adventure for me. But being hired as a server got me thinking about what my long term destinations used to be. I never planned this path for myself.

I never intended to move to New York and serve people overpriced Manhattan dinners. Hell I never even planned on focusing my career on travel. So what did I plan? What was I expecting?

Life throws us in directions we never thought existed. At first I thought there was only right, left, up, or down. I didn't know I could be tossed halfway between up and right with a few weeks of moving down, then a few months of moving left. And that gets me thinking even more. What's waiting for me to the far left...and how is that different from what's waiting at the far right. How do the rewards at the ends of up and down even compare?

Am I making sense? Who knows. But what I do know is that life is full of surprises. Just because we didn't plan to take a right doesn't mean we shouldn't. Just because I didn't plan to serve overpriced Manhattan dinners doesn't mean it's wrong. And just because the travel industry hasn't realized how much it needs me yet, that doesn't mean that it wont soon.

Stay safe, stay warm, stay focused.