The other day, I went into a big department store to run an errand.
I was in a rush, and when I walked in and saw the maze of escalators, I knew I had to make the right decision—or I could end up lost, and my quick trip wouldn’t be so quick.
Once I stepped off the escalator, I realized I’d made the wrong choice.
“Dammit! Now I’m turned around and don’t know where I’m going,” I thought to myself.
After a short detour and some mild annoyance, I found myself on the right escalator, heading to the right floor. I started thinking about how even the smallest choices can completely throw us off—or, lead us exactly where we need to go.
I thought, “I wonder what me getting lost was for?”
The moment I had that thought, I stepped off the escalator, arriving at my destination, and a sweet elderly woman who looked lost asked me, “Excuse me, do you know what floor home furnishings is on?”
I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s funny. That’s the exact floor I ended up on when I was lost.”
After I told her where I had just been and how to get there, I realized my wrong turn had become her right way. My getting lost had helped her find where she needed to be.
As I walked away, I thought about how we truly can’t know what everything is for—and that sometimes, our mistakes can lead to another person’s success.
It made me think about my own journey. For nearly 15 years, I anesthetized my pain with drugs and alcohol. Years filled with confusion and bad decisions. I was lost, but I didn’t know where to find my way out.
For years, I convinced myself that my struggles were too big to overcome, that my past was too ugly to turn into anything good. But after more years of self-destruction, I finally reached the point where I couldn’t go any further. I remember one night looking at myself in the mirror and having an almost out-of-body experience. I heard a small still voice tell me, this road doesn’t end well—your story won’t end well if you keep going.
My journey to sobriety wasn’t linear. There were days I felt like I was getting somewhere, and others where it felt like there were more wrong turns than there were right.
It’s easy to think that the pain we go through is just something to endure and forget. But as I began to get some distance from my past, I realized that the struggles I’d experienced—my “wrong” turns—could be something more. What if they served a purpose, even if I didn’t fully understand it yet?
Now, with 10 years of sobriety from drugs and alcohol, I’ve found myself helping others going through similar struggles—people who were as lost as I once was. I’m able to listen to their stories and truly understand them because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to take a wrong turn, to feel like I’ve lost my way.
Wrong turns didn’t just become part of my own story—they became part of other people’s healing. It was in helping others that I saw how my mistakes, the choices that had caused so much pain, had actually made me someone who could offer something good to the world. The struggles I thought defined me became the foundation for connection.
Life isn’t about avoiding our wrong turns or pretending they didn’t happen. Life is about taking wrong turns and transforming them into something meaningful—not just for ourselves, but for the sake of others too. Sometimes, we go through painful experiences not just for our own growth, but so that we can be of service to those who need us the most.
In helping others find their way, I found mine. The pain I endured—the mistakes I made—became the very things that allowed me to connect with others in a deeper, more authentic way.
Transforming our past pain into something good for the benefit of others is one of the greatest offerings we can make. We can’t change what happened, but we can choose how we use it.
As I walked away from helping the sweet elderly woman in the department store, I realized that sometimes our detours are meant to do more than teach us—they can teach others, too. We can see them as specifically positioned guideposts, reminding us that our path has purpose and that each juncture holds meaning.
I also thought about how nice it felt to be of service to someone lost, and how my “wrong” choice ended up leading me exactly where I needed to be after all.
The next time you make a wrong turn, try asking yourself what it’s for—and remember, there may be something waiting for you in the detour.
Maybe it’s a chance to turn your wrong turn into someone’s right way.
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