Learn: The art of getting lost

There were lot of “cant’s” that I thought would act as barriers to my exchange. I can’t cook, I can’t operate any sort of household machinery without consulting Google/my CTO/manuals of all sorts, I can’t drive and I can’t help but get lost. Things such as cooking, domestic tasks, driving were more of “didn’ts” or “needn’ts” or “wouldn’ts” rather than can’ts but the ability to find directions and orientate myself was definitely a “can’t”. I have an uncanny ability to get lost, misread/misinterpret directions and maps. Embarrassingly enough, I’m one of those who still find it hard to tell their lefts from rights. It’s a golden rule in my family to never ask me for directions. I pity those tourists who ask me for help, there must be lots of lost backpackers in Auckland who were led astray thanks to my terrible sense of direction... so I was chicken shit scared of coming thousands of miles away to a new country, a new continent with the slightest ability to navigate myself..I knew I was going to be lost and lost I was, lost I am..but the more I think about it, the more I realise that getting lost is not that bad after all.

A couple of years ago, when I had the coolest job ever, I was playing treasure hunt with my six year olds and this one kid took far longer than anyone else to find the treasure. I asked him if he had lost his way and he smugly replied “Nah I wasn’t lost, I was just trying to find new and cooler ways of getting to the treasure”. Ah, my little Columbus in the making! At that time I laughed at his 6 year old male “I-can-never-get-lost” cockiness but then I realised that’s what getting lost can be! It’s about finding new ways to get to somewhere..Being lost is not necessarily a negative thing....as long as you know what you want your final destination to be, a little bit of disorientation/misguidedness isn’t that bad.

In fact, ever since I’ve come to Europe..my best adventures and experiences have arisen from getting lost. I have discovered the coolest streets, the most amazing buildings, met the coolest people, done the craziest things all when I was “lost”. Just the other day, I had this epiphany..I finished work before 6 (for a change) and decided to make the most of a sunny day in Prague and walk to this mall from work..but thanks to my highly untrustworthy sense of direction, I ended up in a completely different part of the city. I was getting slightly annoyed with myself, I was sick of walking around in circles, I was tempted to take the metro and then... I came near the Astronomical clock. Now the astronomical clock is a pretty big touristy attraction in Prague, it’s an old clock tower with a little ceremony at every hour. It was 5:55 in the evening and there were many many tourists alllll over the square near the clock. I could hear at least six different languages, I could see people of all age groups, of all skin tones, I could see Gucci bags, I could see hobos..everyone waited patiently for the clock to strike 6 and then.. there was the ceremony! Everyone stood there looking longingly at the minute hand, waiting for it to strike 12. Everyone watched in amazement as the “saints” from the clock came and did their thing and then there was cheering from that big congregation of people from all over the world, of all age/socio-economic/racial groups. Hurrah!! We had ushered in a new hour together. It may seem like I’m being too poetic/dramatic about something as mundane and normal as the change of an hour but it was a highly enthralling moment and a highlight of my week..I realised I would have never had that experience if I hadn’t gone slightly “off-track”. I did end up reaching the mall after all but I just found a “cooler and newer way of getting there” just like my six year old explorer.

We are raised in a society where we are supposed to know where we want to go and also know how to get there. I understand the sentiment, I understand the motivation behind it but I also think that getting a bit lost on the way to where you want to be can be highly rewarding. The discovery of America by Columbus, the Eureka moment that Archimedes had in his bathtub, the establishment of Pixar by Steve Jobs would have all been pretty hard to do if they hadn’t gotten slightly lost, slightly off-track from where they were going/what they were doing.

One of my objectives of my travels is to change my “can’ts” to “cans” (Obama style)..I can’t really change my amazing knack of getting lost but I can use it to my advantage and find “cooler and newer ways” of getting to where I want to go.

On that note, I should end this blog before I get more lost in my own ramblings....