Not a map, but a compass

"Was I really going that fast?"

There are times when life suddenly grinds to a halt. Times where you physically feel the inertia. Like having to fully engage the brakes while going a hundred miles an hour.
Then asking: "Was I really going that fast?"

That’s what I felt after finishing a garden project during my vacation in France. I had set out to complete something I’d started back in March: turning a wild growth of thorny bushes into three tiered garden beds, surrounded by a traditional French rock wall. The weather was great, progress was quick (I'd planned this extensively), and the people I made it for were incredibly thankful and appreciative. In my mind, there was already a plan taking shape for the next project.

The last rocks were in place. A tarp covered the final bed to protect it from weeds.
"Finished. Onto the next," I thought, just before a sharp pain in my left knee made itself known.
Every step I took after that moment made it worse. I was forced to sit down. Take it slow.

A restless mind and nowhere to put it

The weather turned too. Clouded, rain.
Where I’d normally sit outside in the sun, letting the warmth soak up the leftover noise in my head, I now had the perfect storm: a restless mind and nowhere to put it. No project. No outlet. Just drizzle and a dull ache in my knee.

And that’s when a familiar urge came creeping in.
Video games.

Laptop, phone, didn’t matter. They’d always done the trick. A kind of numbing focus, just active enough to feel productive. Easy, accessible, endlessly available. But they always took more than they gave. Time. Energy. Presence.

This time I got lucky.
The first game I downloaded was one I’d played before. I tried logging in—curious where I’d left off, who knows how many months or years ago. No dice. I didn’t remember the credentials, and the game got stuck on a login screen with no way to start fresh.

Somehow, that was enough.

A flash of frustration, but I didn’t look for another game. Not right away.
And in that space, just a little wider than usual, I had time to think. To reflect.
To ask myself what I was really trying to escape.

17% into a book I barely remember

Eventually, I picked up a book I had left unfinished.
I started it during a pilot at work where students were supposed to read the first ten minutes of every lesson, and teachers set the example. I’d made it 17% of the way through before the pilot ended. That number stuck. Probably because it felt more like a statistic than a memory.

The book was The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd.
“What was this about again?” I wondered. Something about our relationship to work… But honestly, I’d barely absorbed any of it the first time. There’s something about trying to concentrate in a room full of teenagers being forced to read that doesn’t exactly lend itself to deep reflection.

Now it was different.
It took a few pages to settle in, mostly to make up for the missing context, but then something clicked. I found myself nodding along. The way Paul described his career path, his quiet dissatisfaction with how work had crept into the center of his life. He used a metaphor: a pebble in your shoe.

My shoes contain some pebbles

I knew that feeling.
My shoes have some pebbles too. And lately, they’ve been making my knee hurt.

Not literally.
But metaphorically. The choices I’ve made over the years, the paths I’ve taken, the projects I’ve chased, the ways I’ve tried to optimize my time. They’ve led me into a life that isn’t fully mine. One shaped by inherited ideals: more money, more status, more opportunity. A ladder someone else leaned against my wall.

When the pressure of my day job lifted during summer, I didn’t rest.
I ran.
Straight into that garden project.

I’ve been, to borrow Brennan Lee Mulligan’s words,
“falling down the hill of my life at top speed, and none of this was planned ahead of time.”

And honestly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Some of my favorite experiences came from running headfirst into the unknown.
What’s different now is that I didn’t realize I was running.

Not a map, but a compass

These past weeks forced me to stop.
And in that pause, I started to see. Not just the pace, but the pull.
It reminded me how essential reflection is, not as a ritual, but as a way of orienting myself again.

Reflection, to me, is mindfulness coupled with intent.

It’s not enough to be intentional about your choices. That can just lead to running faster.
Bolting down the hill without ever asking why you started moving.

It’s not enough to be mindful either. You can stay endlessly aware of where you are, and still drift. Quietly, peacefully, but going nowhere.

To truly reflect is to make choices based on past experiences, and an inkling of what you want to explore in the future.
Reflection is a valuable tool in my toolbox of life. It is not a map that shows where I am, not a route revealing where I need to go.
It is a compass, giving life direction, powered by the purpose I want to give my life.

Until next time,
keep exploring,
keep experimenting,
keep sharing.

—Bram