Where are you now, and where do you need to go? Do you have a map of how to get there?
I've long described philosophy as cartography for the soul, a sort of map making for the human journey.
There is an amazing poem by Czech immunologist and poet Miroslav Holub called "Brief Reflection on Maps." The story in it is instructive.
It's about a small Hungarian military unit of men who were sent out on a scouting mission and got lost in a blizzard in the Alps.
After two days of storms with little visibility, their leader back at the camp was distressed. He gave up on them as dead.
The next day they showed up.
"How did you get back?" He asked.
"We found a map and used it to get here," was the reply.
"Let me see the map," the officer said.
It was a map of the Pyrenees, not the Alps.
It got them back.
It got them moving and gave them confidence that they could find their way.
And they did.
They had a map.
In that storm, in that desperation, it seems that almost any map would do.
In a tough enough situation, maybe almost any map will do.
But: only if it gets us moving and finding our way forward. And it helps our confidence grow.
Do you have a map?
Should you make a map?
Maybe: almost any map will do.
But: only if ...
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Even for those of us who rely on the GPS on the smartphone, sometimes an old-fashioned map is what's called for.
Even when I've wrongly programmed a GPS or misread it, when it still gets me moving, I will usually end up where I want to go!