Prepare for the Journey and Know the Map

By Erin Newton

During the last weeks of the month of August, my Confirmation friend and I journeyed to the two sacred northern sites: The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and The Church of the Assumption. I’d been to the Cathedral before and passed the church of the Assumption on the road and I knew Port of Spain fairly well. But for some reason, Google Maps was just…different.

On this trip, I was the navigator—and well, that didn’t go as expected.

Neither of us had searched the exact area and familiarised ourselves before the journey, which would have made it 10 times easier. Instead, we followed Google maps—reliable but very variable and unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you which streets were not advised (our version at least).

So here go two young women driving into the capital of Trinidad, knowing where we were going but not sure how exactly to get there.

Not to worry, we arrived safely and surely at both sacred sites. But I had learnt a very important lesson: prepare for the journey and know the map.

Yes, in everything. Familiarising yourself with a map ensures that you can think more clearly when you encounter the reality of the place.

In life, we can familiarise ourselves with our small maps—course outlines in school, project plans or instructions at work, the job description—simple things, yet they mean a lot. What plays the role of a map in the different areas of our lives?

New things or places sometimes take a while to adjust to. We don’t want to be making a wrong turn while looking at the map, trying to figure it out and ‘cars’ are behind us, so we can’t stop. This is why we should study the map before we start the journey.

It’s good to have a plan as well. We can stick to it, and it can act as our map for the day.

Becoming familiar with our map also allows us to take the least time possible to get where we need to go, as we avoid making some mistakes.

You can chat with someone who has experienced the situation before allows us to learn from previously made mistakes instead of making our own.

Familiarise yourself with the map and the directions.