Life Lessons from GPS

/*This post was written in 2012, why is it still lying in my drafts folder in my blog?  */

I have a car here in US. It came with a GPS (Global Positioning System) attached.

GPS is a good tool. Once it knows where you want to go, once you enter your destination in the GPS, the GPS will safely guide you to your destination. You are in a wrong street? Do not worry, GPS will quickly recalculate your position and will give you an alternate route which will take you to your destination.

While navigating Batavia town with my GPS, I got into thinking about the similarities between the real GPS and the Life GPS. By Life GPS, I mean the guiding system that navigates our lives. We all have one.

There are a number of similarities between real GPS and the Life GPS.

One, both these GPS systems are available to you. But whether you use them or not is a choice that you have to make. For example, if you know your city really well, you may not use the GPS in your car.

Similarly, if you are very sure of where you are headed in your life, you may not require to use the Life GPS.

Unfortunately, most of us are not aware of where we are going with our life and hence need the services of the Life GPS.

Two, the GPS in your car is absolutely and totally focused on helping you reach the destination that you entered in the system. Wherever you are currently, you can be assured that you are going to be safely directed to your destination.

What is the catch? It is YOUR destination. GPS will not know what is in your mind, unless you inform it of your goal, your destination, where you want to go.

This is quite similar to how it happens in life. Most of the people navigate through their lives, without informing their goal / direction to their Life GPS. Since the Life GPS do not know where you want to go in your life, it is clueless and hence not helpful.

The upshot is that you are going through a directionless life and then wonder why you are not going anywhere.

Just think and try to answer these questions. What do you want to do today? What do you want to achieve this week? this month? this year? In your life? Do you know answer to any of these questions?

Does your Life GPS know what is your destination? Have you informed your goal to your Life GPS?

Once your Life GPS knows where you want to go, it will guide you to reach the destination, no matter where you currently are. It will quickly recalculate your position and give you helpful hints to help you reach your goal. Even if you ignore its recommendation and move in a wrong direction, your life GPS will quickly recalculate your current position in your life and provide you alternative paths to help you reach your destination.

Third similarity between these two GPS is that just like in real GPS, you have to prioritize what you want to do. Let us say that you want to go to the following places (I am using US info as I am currently here). Walmart, JC Pennys, Target and to the mall for watching a movie. When you are sitting in a car, the GPS is only asking for the first destination that you want to go to. You cannot tell GPS that you want to go to all these places and then expect the GPS to prioritize your destinations / goals for you. You have to provide GPS, the information regarding your immediate destination. Once you reach your first destination, you can tell GPS where you want to go next.

Same is the case with your Life GPS. Today for example, I wanted to do the following tasks. One, go to Niagara Falls, two, complete the requirement documentation, three, complete the initial configuration in the application and four, write an article in my blog. If I do not tell my Life GPS my priority of actioning on my goals, you can be sure that nothing will get done in the end.

So I told me Life GPS that my first destination is Niagara Falls. So it asked me questions like do you have enough fuel? Do you know the rules of navigating US interstate highways, do you know how the gear system in an automatic transmission work. I got answers to all of these questions and I was on my way to Niagara falls. If I had not prioritized it properly, the chances are that I would not have gone to Niagara today (just as I  wanted to go there yesterday and the day before and did not go.)

Finally, just like real GPS, you could enter a destination and completely ignore the recommendation. But that is your choice. Either you change your destination in your Life GPS or you switch off the Life GPS and go on leading a directionless life.