I spent the weekend in Los Angeles; my best friend lives there and she was celebrating a milestone birthday. I’ve become very familiar with the drive from San Diego to Los Angeles, between work and play, I’d say I’ve earned at least 2,000 frequent driver miles in the last year. The drive is simple and straightforward, 5 North to the 101 North, exit Santa Monica Boulevard. What I love about the drive from San Diego to Los Angeles is the feeling of simplicity in chaos it provides me. Numerous freeways attach to the 5 North at various given times on the 110 mile journey, thousands of cars speed past you, entering, exiting and maybe giving you dirty looks and yelling if you’re driving too slow in the left lane (hint, hint), but in the midst of this chaos, all one must remember to do is to stay on the 5.

Today on my trip back to San Diego from Los Angeles, my simplicity in chaos theory was thrown directly out the window, landing somewhere between Wilshire and Fairfax. As we made our way from the 101 South the traffic stopped, we didn’t think much of it seeing as how we were in Los Angeles. As we inched our way to the ramp to enter the 5 South, my heart skipped a beat: the entire ramp to the 5 freeway was shut down for construction all the way to Irvine. My simple trip home had suddenly become complicated. We quickly found ourselves in a slow moving lane of traffic on the 10 East, next to the University of Southern California campus. We pulled off at the next exit and quickly and stopped at a 7-11 to reevaluate our situation, as we were in unfamiliar territory, low on gas and extremely tired.

After a quick call to our hostess and a couple of road checks on our iPhones, we had a new route home, one that involved a bit of backtracking and various freeway numbers that ended in 05 and 10. My heart rate began to accelerate and I started to get very nervous. I was very comfortable with my simplistic drive to and from Los Angeles; I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about this personally unexplored, new path home.

Eventually (and not in too terrible of traffic) we were on the right freeway home and coasting to our final destination. I started to think about all the metaphorical references I could use this experience for, how many goals (or final destinations) do we have at any given time period? How many of us stay on the path we feel most comfortable with to get there?  How many of us get nervous when a path less traveled is the only option for success?

I make goals every day, some lofty, some realistic. I believe that hard work takes you to your goals, that nothing is unattainable with the right work ethic, constant education and determination. However, I missed one very big lesson- change. Working methodically, on a path that you know will succeed is smart; however being unprepared for adjustments is not. Unforeseen changes can happen at any moment, in any aspect of life. Methodical paths are not always going to stay on the straight and narrow and, in some cases one must apply the old adage, “if at first you don’t succeed try, try again”.

What is the lesson here?  Sometimes the freeway is going to be closed. You can’t control it, you can’t change it, but you can recognize it, own it and find another freeway around it. The path to success varies, and the simplest route won’t always be open. Don’t get discouraged, simply find a new freeway.

Oh and yes, I made it back to San Diego by way of the 101 North to the 110 South to the 10 West to the 405 South and eventually, back to the 5 South. It was a beautiful trip… and one worth taking.

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We’re told from a young age that hard work pays off. This statement encompasses so many different aspects of emotion and begs the questions; how is hard work judged, what does the phrase “pay off” really mean and who or what is going hold us accountable for working hard?

In grade school we had our names listed on a board with stop light colors next to them. Green meant you had turned in your assignments, behaved and could go to recess. Red meant you didn’t and were staying inside. A stoplight held us accountable for working hard. No one wanted to be the kid with the red light that had to sit with their head down at their desk while everyone else went outside to do penny drops off the monkey bars.

In high school and college hard work was rewarded with letters.  An A meant you worked hard, a D meant you didn’t. A simple piece of paper with letters on it that was given out twice a year, this piece of paper held us accountable for working hard.  No one wanted to be the kid that was left behind, no one wanted to take a piece of paper home with five D’s on it, everyone wanted to write their dream college on the map in the guidance office before graduating.

Flash forward to after college graduation, where until now our whole lives hard work had been rewarded with colors and letters, a simplistic reality at its finest. Here we are in the work force, fresh faced, idealistic, dreaming big dreams of a big life that still seems foreign to us. Except now there are no stoplights, or pieces of papers with simple letters. The only thing holding us accountable for hard work is us.

Judgment is no longer simple- no green, no red, no A, no F. Judgment is messy. It’s from bosses and co-workers, clients and friends. Not working hard now means losing jobs, income and livelihood, not just recess.

We often times find ourselves wondering what is the payoff? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of hard work. I’ve learned over time and with experience that working hard is a daily task, a decision that one makes minutely and hourly. Hard work is a chain reaction the pay offs come in small victories that when strung together create success.

There is no magic formula for hard work, it’s not a step that can be falsified or skipped.  What I’ve learned is to work hard in everything you do, at the end of every day ask yourself if there was anything else you could have done. If there is, learn from it and do it better the next day, if not be satisfied.

Learn to work hard, ask yourself the tough questions decide if you deserve a green light or red. Nine times out of ten hard work will lead you to recess.