Road Closed to Your Normal Way of Life

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When you hear or read the word “detour,” what’s the primary emotion you experience?

Do you feel excited, optimistic, and energized? Or hesitant, doubtful, and cautious?

I’m going to guess that for most of us, it’s the latter set of emotions.

Nobody I know wants to voluntarily take a detour, whether it’s on their way to work or on the life path they’ve chosen. A detour feels haphazard and lacking purpose. It feels like we’ve lost control and, perhaps, our way. Take a detour, and who knows where we’re going or when we’ll get there?

Just yesterday, I was in a deep and engaging conversation with a brilliant man who, by all measures, has created a masterpiece of a life. He is a true Renaissance man and has lived several lifetimes in one. In the process, he has and continues to contribute meaningfully to society, his community, and his family.

So it surprised me when he confessed that if he had to do it all over again, perhaps he wouldn’t take so many detours. This is not a man who is fake or performatively humble. He knows his worth, which is why I know the undertone of regret in his statement was authentic.

I could see so clearly what he could not. The extraordinary life he has and continues to create is because of his many detours, not in spite of them! This insight had me thinking about my life and perhaps the “detours” I’ve regretted. Is it possible that, in the long run, those side roads contributed positively, uniquely, and invaluably to my life?

I think our negative view of detours has everything to do with our bias towards loss aversion. Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman explains that losses loom larger than gains. In other words, we’d rather not lose something than gain something which, all things equal, has a greater value.

Reflecting on the detours I’ve taken, my default is to ruminate on what I (believe) I lost by taking that path. It’s easy to regret what looks like a guaranteed “bird in hand” in the rearview mirror: the man, career, and relationship I walked away from in favor of what called to me at the moment. But live long enough, and you know one thing for sure. There were never any guarantees, and imagining or assuming a result doesn’t make it true.

I work with many young adults. Their parents want them to develop confidence and a bias for action. However, what my young adult clients want most is clarity and understanding of their purpose. The difference between these two goals is not generational; it’s the result of the decades of experience that separate us from our kids.

We know we didn’t have clarity and purpose at 22—even if we thought we did.  We know that even the most confident amongst us ended up somewhere different than where we planned. We know that just because we followed the map laid out for us and achieved the “things,” we didn’t necessarily feel that we had “arrived.” And we know that, ultimately, we dared to take the detours that created the life that is uniquely ours.

To be clear, I’m not advocating changing our minds and paths willy-nilly. That’s called ADHD, lack of commitment, and running away when the going gets tough. The openness to taking detours I’m talking about is the kind that is conscious and deliberate. As much as I rolled my eyes when I first heard the phrase “Conscious Uncoupling,” today, I use it as an example of how we can do detours correctly.

So, go ahead, celebrate your past detours, and take new ones consciously. You don’t have to explain your reasons for taking a detour to anyone else, but it should make deep and resounding sense to you.