The Road

The Road

It rained the night before.

So, the next morning the California hills looked like someone repainted them, vivid green grass, clean wet asphalt, a blue sky so crisp it felt staged. The air had that fresh, post-rain smell that makes you feel like you’re in a better version of your life.

And I was staring at it… from a dead stop.

Bumper-to-bumper traffic. On the highway. On the way to work.

That’s when it hit me:

I wasn’t commuting.

I was complying.

Not with a boss. Not with a schedule.

With a system.

A system I didn’t design. A system I didn’t consciously choose. A system I quietly agreed to (one day at a time) until it became “normal.”

You know the script. It’s the default script:

Get a good education. Get a good job. Move up. Buy the house. Raise the kids. Send them to college. Retire. Repeat.

And while you’re doing it, you learn to optimize your transportation inside the script.

My first car was a stick shift. Fun, until traffic. So I upgraded to an automatic. Then a four-door. Then the “right” car so I could use the HOV lane and buy back twenty minutes of my own life.

Same road. Same gridlock. Same destination.

Just a nicer cage.

That’s the trap: the system doesn’t punish you with pain. It rewards you with upgrades.

It hands you little improvements, better car, better title, better parking, better coffee, so you don’t notice you’re trading the only non-renewable resource you have.

Time.

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— Back —

And the crazy part is we don’t even describe it like we’re living.

We say we’re “in traffic.” We’re “stuck.” We’re “fighting traffic.”

Listen to that language. That’s not movement. That’s warfare. That’s captivity.

Most people spend their entire life mastering the road.

They learn the fastest routes. They learn the best hours. They learn the best podcasts to numb the drive. They learn how to get promoted so they can afford a better car so they can survive the road slightly more comfortably.

They don’t realize what they’re actually optimizing.

Not freedom. Not meaning.

A commute.

And then COVID happened, and for a moment the road disappeared.

This isn’t a remote work argument. That’s not the point.

The point is: millions of people accidentally found out the road wasn’t physically required.

And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

Because the moment you realize the road is optional… you start asking a forbidden question:

Why am I doing this?

Why am I getting dressed up… to sit in traffic… to go to a building… to do work I already proved I can do somewhere else?

And even if your job can’t be remote, fine.

That’s not the escape hatch.

The escape hatch is the realization.

Sitting there in my “upgraded” life, staring at those green hills, I thought:

What if I just take the off-ramp?

Who said the road is mandatory?

Who told me my only choices were: more traffic, or a better car?

Because that’s what the system does. It keeps your imagination inside the guardrails.

It tells you the only way to win is to play harder.

It never tells you you can quit the game.

When I looked around, I saw the evidence everywhere.

Garages stuffed with things we bought because we were too tired to feel. Cars parked in driveways like trophies. People measuring their success by the logo on the hood, because the hood is the part of their life they spend the most time staring at.

And then I noticed something else:

The people who actually run things aren’t on the road like everyone else.

They’re not thinking about traffic.

They’re thinking about leverage.

They own assets. They own distribution. They own systems. They make decisions that change the map instead of enduring it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are fighting over inches of asphalt like it’s life itself.

So here’s the cleanest version of the idea:

The road is the default script.

It’s the loop where you trade hours for permission. Where you keep proving your value to someone else. Where your “freedom” is whatever’s left after the system takes its cut.

And the road has a seductive lie built into it:

“If I just upgrade enough, it will feel like freedom.”

It won’t.

You can make the car quieter. You can make the seat softer. You can make the lane faster.

But if you don’t choose the destination, you’re not free.

You’re just comfortable on the way to someone else’s plan.

Now, let me be clear.

I’m not here to call out anyone who’s on the road.

Some people need the road for a season. Some people need stability. Some people are rebuilding.

Fine.

This isn’t about shame.

This is about consciousness.

Because once you understand you’re in a system you didn’t choose, you get your power back.

And you get to make a real decision:

Keep optimizing transportation inside the script…

or rewrite the script.

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— Back —

Here’s the gut punch:

If you don’t choose your system, you still get one.

You just get the default, designed by people who profit when you stay predictable.

So stop telling yourself you’re “stuck.” That’s not a fact. That’s a preference you’ve repeated until it felt like reality.

You have three options: 1. Choose a different system … ownership, leverage, deals, distribution, skills that travel. 2. Build your own system, even if it’s small at first. 3. Or stay on the road.

But don’t romanticize the road.

Because the road doesn’t care about your intentions. It doesn’t care that you’re “planning.” It doesn’t care that you’ll “start next year.”

The road will take your time quietly, daily, politely—until you wake up one day and realize you built a life you never actually chose.

So here’s your question:

Are you going to keep upgrading the car…
or are you finally going to take the off-ramp?

Because if you don’t, if you stay in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the rest of your life, there’s a word for that.

It’s not “success.”

It’s not “stability.”

It’s surrender.

You can choose something else.

— Andy

P.S. Choose your life, or it will be chosen for you.
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