"There is no road map. No black or white answers. People really like black and white-go to school, boom, boom, boom, and you could be this. No one should tell you 'this leads to that' or 'you need to do this,' because there are a lot of options out there."
-Gary Erickson, founder and CEO of Clif Bar

What if the trip doesn't end up like you expected? What happens if the road map you're following takes you to a destination that isn't even there anymore? Road maps can't possibly keep up with the rate of change in society today, and over time they can close your life off to pivotal opportunities.

One person we met who kept his life open to opportunity by throwing out the road map was Gary Erickson, the founder of Clif Bar. "I had grown up with evangelical parents in suburbia, where things seemed pretty black and white. But after college I traveled the world, and when I came back to the United States I realized that there is no black and white. You have to be comfortable living in the gray." Gary went on to become a professional cyclist, selling Greek pastries on the side. One day, he had an epiphany. Combining his experience in cycling and cooking, he invented Clif Bar, an energy bar perfect for athletes. Rather than following a specific road map, Gary found his path by seeing the intersection between those two finite aspects of his life.

Even the scientist who decoded the human genome, Dr. J. Craig Venter, didn't have a road map. "School was boring so I never paid much attention. It was an unrewarding experience. In high school I only took two science classes, got a D-minus in physics, and came within half a grade of graduating. I left home at seventeen. To support myself I worked as a night clerk at Sears, putting labels on things, so I could surf during the day." He would later find science through a very circuitous route, working in the medical corps during the Vietnam War. "I loved it."

We're led to think that absolute structure is demanded for all roads in life. But just because it works for someone who wants to become an accountant doesn't mean it works for someone who is passionate about writing, art, sports, music, or virtually anything else. Life is not a predictable experience. Very few of the people we met on the road went directly from point A to point B.

In fact, it was clear that if the people we met had followed an exact road map, they would have missed opportunities that played a huge part in defining their roads. If Gary Erickson had gone on to grad school instead of selling Greek pastries to support his cycling career, he would have never started Clif Bar. The world is full of possibility and potential, but we're the ones who choose to be open or closed to them.