But I’m Headed Home!

Out in a rough rural county there was a rascally young man who spent his evenings and late nights drinking and getting in fights at dive bars and roadhouses and collections of trucks pulled up around a bonfire out somewhere on a patch of dirt.  It was generally a rascally county with its share of rascally people so he had plenty of company.  As you might expect , the roads were also pretty rough.  Getting from spot to spot in the dark could be a bone-jarring and gut twisting experience–potholes, detours, poorly marked curves, uneven surfaces… But he was not the sort of young man who could much stay in one place, he never quite found what he was looking for.

One evening after a particularly bad set of bounces  one of which smashed his head into the steering wheel, he pulled over and just … quit.  No more, he decided.  He hated himself and the whole experience, he was sick of it, he was done.  He was going to go home, hug his mom, and tell her he was going to be a changed man.

With this resolution, he turned his car around to head home.  But the roads were still the roads and he once again started pounding through potholes in the dark, and once again smashed his head. He was outraged and betrayed.  Wasn’t he now doing the right thing?  Wasn’t he now headed home?

Moral: Good goals don’t patch potholes.