Chapter 17Using Y.O.D.A. to Get Home
May you live long enough to know why you were born.
—Cherokee Birth Blessing
You've been traveling by car for nearly two weeks on a family vacation. You've covered nearly 3,000 miles and now you're ready to return home. Your current location is very unfamiliar to you and you're not sure of the best route home. Immediately you reach forward and activate the car's navigation system.
A question appears on your screen: “What is your intended destination?” You respond “Home.” But if your home address has not been preloaded into the system, the next prompt is: “What is the address?” Because you've recently moved to a new home, your car does not have the exact address in its system. You know the city, the suburb, and the street you live on, but the specific address completely slips your mind.
After several failed attempts to upload the adequate number of relevant details into your navigational system, you finally realize that without an exact address, your system cannot be relied on to get you home. You must provide an exact address!
For your car's navigation system to function properly, two coordinates are required: your exact current location and your exact intended destination. Without both data points precisely uploaded, the car's navigation system simply cannot be trusted to take you where you want to go.
The Tombstone Exercise
As defined here, home is your ultimate destination in life. It is the place where you want to end up when your ...
Get Wise Decisions now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.