Finding The Way
It's quite easy to get lost. All it takes is a simple wrong turn for you to end up stuck in a place that you don't recognise, and suddenly you feel like an alien; you look around and everyone else knows where they're going and what they're doing, but you're a wanderer, somewhere completely new and you're there completely by accident.
Suddenly, you're Dorothy in Munchkinland, you're Alice in Wonderland, you're The Doctor at a Christmas dinner table. Although perhaps on a slightly less ground-breaking scale.
More importantly, once you're lost, it's not quite as easy to find your way back. Okay, there are cases where you can just turn around and go back the way you came, but even a method as simple as that can bring about its own set of worries, such as: 'I'm quite sure I turned right on the way... So I should take a left on the way back, right? Or is that the other way around....?...Hang on, I don't remember that tree being there. Or that pub... That's it, I'm completely lost! I'm never going to find my way back!'
Most of the time, being in that different place can make you feel so uncomfortable that your mind becomes all muddled and you just go into a bit of a zombie mode. You're scared to ask for directions just in case it makes you look like a fool, but you're also worried that if you don't, you'll get even more lost and end up in Timbuktu. Which wouldn't be good.
But it happens, and I'm pretty sure that everyone's felt lost like that at least once. I have to say, it's not the best feeling in the world...
Last time, I mentioned that I had job interview coming up. That job interview was almost a week ago now, and it went really well. The interview was at Strood library, although there were Saturday assistant positions available at all of the local libraries. I was quite nervous, but when I was there, I felt really comfortable talking to the ladies who were interviewing me.
Then I was asked to do a test. I had 15 minutes to organise both a set of non-fiction books into numerical order (according to their labels) and a bunch of fiction books into alphabetical order (by the author's surname).
I loved that test. If that was all I'd had to do in my GCSE and A-Level exams, I would have been more than happy. Seriously, I alphabetise my DVDs.
Anyway, the library I was interviewed at is in a town that I haven't spent that much time in. I go there occasionally, but that's just because there's a Morrison's there, which my brother happens to work at. So I had no idea where the library was in Strood, and I was so worried about getting lost and being late that I got a cab there. The library was in a little side turning, and the driver told me that when I was finished, I should come out of this little road, turn left and just keep walking, then I would find the high street.
So, that's what I did: I came out of the library, feeling happy about the interview, walked out of the side turning, turned left and followed the road. And followed the road. And followed the road...
Now, after about 10 minutes of walking along this busy road, I found a bench, so I stopped to change my shoes.*
*Hint of the Day: If you have an interview or something similar coming up in an area you don't know, or somewhere that's quite far from your home, always pack a pair of comfortable shoes that you can change into after. You have no idea grateful for them you will be.
While I was sat on this bench, I got my phone out and searched the Maps app for directions from where I was to Strood high street. It showed me a map, with a little marker to show where I was, and another to show where Strood high street was. In between those markers was a bold line, basically indicating that I just had to walk straight along the road I was on, and then take a left a bit later on. That looked simple enough to me, so I carried on walking the way I was going, expecting to see some sign of the high street quite soon.
You might have guessed this already but, ummm...
I got lost.
I didn't realise at first. I mean, I got an inkling that something wasn't right when I noticed that there was more and more grass appearing and less buildings were around.
It wasn't until I saw a sign saying 'Frindsbury Extra' that it started dawning on me that I wasn't anywhere near Strood high street, and that I should probably try and find my way back.
Any normal person would have just turned around and walked back the way they'd come, but me being me, I couldn't bring myself to do that.
I'm like that all the time, I can't just turn around on the spot because I know it'll look strange to people around me.
So, I carried on walking, hoping to get back to where I'd come from via a side turning or something like that. But by this time, all the side turnings I was seeing looked more like cul-de-sacs or dead ends. So I just had to keep walking along the big long road.
Not long after the Frindsbury Extra sign, the road started becoming busier and the traffic noise was getting gradually louder. This was soon explained by the roundabout and dual carriageway I ended up at the side of. When I saw that, I really started panicking, thinking I'd get myself stuck in a field somewhere before long.
Thankfully, the path continued into a small street of houses, just about parallel to the dual carriageway. Following this path, I soon found myself walking past a sign saying 'Wainscott.'
I'd heard of Wainscott before, but always imagined it to be a land far, far away, a place I'd never expected to come across at any point soon.
It was only at this point that I finally had the sense to check the maps on my phone again. It had saved the last route it had shown me, from the little bench I'd been at to Strood high street, so that bold line was still there. But, because I'd moved, it showed my little marker as being in a different place.
I think now would be a good time to use a visual aid.
Do you like it? I made it myself!
You'll have to excuse the fact that it's not to scale.
The two black lines and the space between them represents the long road I'd been walking along.
The square is the bench, the star is the high street. The red line is the route I should have taken to get from the bench to the high street.
The pentagon shape is roughly where I was by the time I was in Wainscott.
So, essentially, I had been walking along the correct road, just in completely the opposite direction to what I should have been. Yeah. I'm that silly.
Using the maps, I managed to get an idea of the route I needed to take to get back to the high street, although I do owe a massive thanks to a guy who was walking just ahead of me and who seemed to be turning all the corners I needed to turn, and so on. I followed him for a while until I was sure I was on the right track.I eventually found my way back to Strood high street, and discovered that, while walking along that long road, I'd walked right past the turning I should have taken. If I'd gone the right way to start with, it would have taken me about 10 minutes to get from the library to the high street. Instead, it took me an hour and 15 minutes.
You might be wondering what the point in me telling you all of this is.
Well, I had a deep moment earlier when I was thinking about writing a new post.
I realised that getting lost that day after my interview is, in a way, symbolic of the way that people can get lost at certain times in their lives and how easy it is.
You carry on along a certain path because you think it's the right way to go, but then you find out, sometimes a bit too late, that you should have gone down the route that would take you in the opposite direction.
Or sometimes you just find yourself wandering - you might not know where you are, but you're not too sure of where you're trying to go. So you feel like that one stranger, caught in a maze filled with people who all know the exact direction in which they're headed, and they know how to get there, while you're constantly stuck at square one.
I've felt like that for a good few months now. Whenever someone asked me what I'd been up to recently, my answer was always 'job hunting', because that's all I was doing, and it made me feel lost.
I felt like I had no real purpose, like I wasn't really important for anything, and that upset me.
I'd have job interviews, and feel like I was getting somewhere, but then I'd get messages of rejection and feel like I was back where I started. Again.
Until the library interview.
It's the first interview I've had where I've been truly happy with how I handled it.
And I guess it must have gone as well as I'd thought it had, because I've been offered a position with a library near me!
The other day, when I told some of my friends about getting the job, they all seemed genuinely happy for me which, in turn, made me feel good about myself for the first time in a long while.
Sometimes, small things that other people do or say are key to helping you find your way back to where you were, and most of the time, they don't even know what a difference they've made.
Just like that random guy who was walking in front of me when I was lost in Wainscott.
I realise now how easy it was for me to fall into that state of mind, where I had a low self-esteem and I felt useless. It was so easy for me to lose my way.
Slowly but surely, though, I think I'm starting to find my way back.
Plus, I think I'm a lot better off now than I was before, because I know how I can deal with it better if I'm ever in that place again.
Similarly, if I ever need to get to Wainscott from Strood, I'll know the way without too much trouble!
Because, you see, the thing about getting lost is that, no matter how hard it might be to get yourself back on track, you'll always have something you can learn from the journey.
Suddenly, you're Dorothy in Munchkinland, you're Alice in Wonderland, you're The Doctor at a Christmas dinner table. Although perhaps on a slightly less ground-breaking scale.
More importantly, once you're lost, it's not quite as easy to find your way back. Okay, there are cases where you can just turn around and go back the way you came, but even a method as simple as that can bring about its own set of worries, such as: 'I'm quite sure I turned right on the way... So I should take a left on the way back, right? Or is that the other way around....?...Hang on, I don't remember that tree being there. Or that pub... That's it, I'm completely lost! I'm never going to find my way back!'
Most of the time, being in that different place can make you feel so uncomfortable that your mind becomes all muddled and you just go into a bit of a zombie mode. You're scared to ask for directions just in case it makes you look like a fool, but you're also worried that if you don't, you'll get even more lost and end up in Timbuktu. Which wouldn't be good.
But it happens, and I'm pretty sure that everyone's felt lost like that at least once. I have to say, it's not the best feeling in the world...
Last time, I mentioned that I had job interview coming up. That job interview was almost a week ago now, and it went really well. The interview was at Strood library, although there were Saturday assistant positions available at all of the local libraries. I was quite nervous, but when I was there, I felt really comfortable talking to the ladies who were interviewing me.
Then I was asked to do a test. I had 15 minutes to organise both a set of non-fiction books into numerical order (according to their labels) and a bunch of fiction books into alphabetical order (by the author's surname).
I loved that test. If that was all I'd had to do in my GCSE and A-Level exams, I would have been more than happy. Seriously, I alphabetise my DVDs.
Anyway, the library I was interviewed at is in a town that I haven't spent that much time in. I go there occasionally, but that's just because there's a Morrison's there, which my brother happens to work at. So I had no idea where the library was in Strood, and I was so worried about getting lost and being late that I got a cab there. The library was in a little side turning, and the driver told me that when I was finished, I should come out of this little road, turn left and just keep walking, then I would find the high street.
So, that's what I did: I came out of the library, feeling happy about the interview, walked out of the side turning, turned left and followed the road. And followed the road. And followed the road...
Now, after about 10 minutes of walking along this busy road, I found a bench, so I stopped to change my shoes.*
*Hint of the Day: If you have an interview or something similar coming up in an area you don't know, or somewhere that's quite far from your home, always pack a pair of comfortable shoes that you can change into after. You have no idea grateful for them you will be.
While I was sat on this bench, I got my phone out and searched the Maps app for directions from where I was to Strood high street. It showed me a map, with a little marker to show where I was, and another to show where Strood high street was. In between those markers was a bold line, basically indicating that I just had to walk straight along the road I was on, and then take a left a bit later on. That looked simple enough to me, so I carried on walking the way I was going, expecting to see some sign of the high street quite soon.
You might have guessed this already but, ummm...
I got lost.
I didn't realise at first. I mean, I got an inkling that something wasn't right when I noticed that there was more and more grass appearing and less buildings were around.
It wasn't until I saw a sign saying 'Frindsbury Extra' that it started dawning on me that I wasn't anywhere near Strood high street, and that I should probably try and find my way back.
Any normal person would have just turned around and walked back the way they'd come, but me being me, I couldn't bring myself to do that.
I'm like that all the time, I can't just turn around on the spot because I know it'll look strange to people around me.
So, I carried on walking, hoping to get back to where I'd come from via a side turning or something like that. But by this time, all the side turnings I was seeing looked more like cul-de-sacs or dead ends. So I just had to keep walking along the big long road.
Not long after the Frindsbury Extra sign, the road started becoming busier and the traffic noise was getting gradually louder. This was soon explained by the roundabout and dual carriageway I ended up at the side of. When I saw that, I really started panicking, thinking I'd get myself stuck in a field somewhere before long.
Thankfully, the path continued into a small street of houses, just about parallel to the dual carriageway. Following this path, I soon found myself walking past a sign saying 'Wainscott.'
I'd heard of Wainscott before, but always imagined it to be a land far, far away, a place I'd never expected to come across at any point soon.
It was only at this point that I finally had the sense to check the maps on my phone again. It had saved the last route it had shown me, from the little bench I'd been at to Strood high street, so that bold line was still there. But, because I'd moved, it showed my little marker as being in a different place.
I think now would be a good time to use a visual aid.
Do you like it? I made it myself!
You'll have to excuse the fact that it's not to scale.
The two black lines and the space between them represents the long road I'd been walking along.
The square is the bench, the star is the high street. The red line is the route I should have taken to get from the bench to the high street.
The pentagon shape is roughly where I was by the time I was in Wainscott.
So, essentially, I had been walking along the correct road, just in completely the opposite direction to what I should have been. Yeah. I'm that silly.
Using the maps, I managed to get an idea of the route I needed to take to get back to the high street, although I do owe a massive thanks to a guy who was walking just ahead of me and who seemed to be turning all the corners I needed to turn, and so on. I followed him for a while until I was sure I was on the right track.I eventually found my way back to Strood high street, and discovered that, while walking along that long road, I'd walked right past the turning I should have taken. If I'd gone the right way to start with, it would have taken me about 10 minutes to get from the library to the high street. Instead, it took me an hour and 15 minutes.
You might be wondering what the point in me telling you all of this is.
Well, I had a deep moment earlier when I was thinking about writing a new post.
I realised that getting lost that day after my interview is, in a way, symbolic of the way that people can get lost at certain times in their lives and how easy it is.
You carry on along a certain path because you think it's the right way to go, but then you find out, sometimes a bit too late, that you should have gone down the route that would take you in the opposite direction.
Or sometimes you just find yourself wandering - you might not know where you are, but you're not too sure of where you're trying to go. So you feel like that one stranger, caught in a maze filled with people who all know the exact direction in which they're headed, and they know how to get there, while you're constantly stuck at square one.
I've felt like that for a good few months now. Whenever someone asked me what I'd been up to recently, my answer was always 'job hunting', because that's all I was doing, and it made me feel lost.
I felt like I had no real purpose, like I wasn't really important for anything, and that upset me.
I'd have job interviews, and feel like I was getting somewhere, but then I'd get messages of rejection and feel like I was back where I started. Again.
Until the library interview.
It's the first interview I've had where I've been truly happy with how I handled it.
And I guess it must have gone as well as I'd thought it had, because I've been offered a position with a library near me!
The other day, when I told some of my friends about getting the job, they all seemed genuinely happy for me which, in turn, made me feel good about myself for the first time in a long while.
Sometimes, small things that other people do or say are key to helping you find your way back to where you were, and most of the time, they don't even know what a difference they've made.
Just like that random guy who was walking in front of me when I was lost in Wainscott.
I realise now how easy it was for me to fall into that state of mind, where I had a low self-esteem and I felt useless. It was so easy for me to lose my way.
Slowly but surely, though, I think I'm starting to find my way back.
Plus, I think I'm a lot better off now than I was before, because I know how I can deal with it better if I'm ever in that place again.
Similarly, if I ever need to get to Wainscott from Strood, I'll know the way without too much trouble!
Because, you see, the thing about getting lost is that, no matter how hard it might be to get yourself back on track, you'll always have something you can learn from the journey.
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