An interesting thing happened to me this afternoon when I was dropping off a friend of my son Jordan at his home. He had asked me what the screen was near the gear shift and I told him it was a GPS. He thought that was really cool and wanted to see how it worked. I turned it on.
That was pretty much it. We talked a little bit about GPS, DVD’s, CD’s, and the like and I ended up dropping him off with his parents.
As I turned the corner, and headed out from the street, all of a sudden, the GPS audio decided to instruct me as to where to go. In a very attractive pleasant female voice, I was told to make a right turn. I thought that was a little odd because I didn’t really think that the GPS had even the slightest clue as to where I was going. It then began a series of instructions to me, “turn left in 300 feet.””Turn right in 450 feet.” And so forth…Always with a very pleasant voice out of A Clockwork Orange. It was never offensive, but it was always curious to me. It was curious for the simple reason that it appeared to me that the GPS was giving me instructions without having any idea of where I was going.
By the way, as it was giving me these instructions, it was also showing me a map of exactly where I was in relationship to the Winter Park area, which is where I live.
In any event, it continued to give me instructions all the way. And, curiously enough, as I literally pulled into my driveway, it told me to make a U-turn at the first available opportunity. I wasn’t sure if that was a warning or just a simple malfunction!
The upshot of all this, my friends, is that I had to wonder throughout this entire time that a GPS system which is so incredibly sophisticated that it gives us the opportunity to know where we are at any particular time in relationship to our surroundings is only as good as an understanding of where we are in relationship to where we want to be.
Recognize a GPS system which is so incredibly accurate that it was actually telling me, at any particular time, exactly when I was passing the street to my right or to my left, or literally turning just a little to the right or left as the street curved.
In addition, it was so unbelievably sophisticated that this very attractive and pleasant female audio voice was telling me what to do along the way.
But at the end of the day, as sophisticated a tool as a GPS has turned out to be, it is only as good as our ability to be able to use it to tell us where we are in relationship to where we want to be. Without that critical information—where we want to be—the GPS is pretty worthless, when it comes right down to it.
I am reminded of the old adage about the hitchhiker who wakes up in a car and asks the driver“Where are we?” The driver turns and says “I have no idea, but we’re making great time.”
A pilot knows exactly where he or she plans on landing before he or she ever takes off.
Generally speaking, we know where we are headed in our cars before we leave our homes in the morning, or as we go out shopping on a Saturday.
What I really wonder is how many of us know exactly where we are going as we take our necessary steps in life, building a career, establishing personal relationships, creating friendships, mending or re-creating family bonds, and so forth.
At the end of the day, it takes two things: clarity with respect to what we are doing and information about where we are along the way.