So you're rumbling along on a road trip with your girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, whatever. Let's just set that stage for a second. You've been on the road for a few hours. The high and excitement of hitting the open road has kind of dwindled, though there is still some eagerness there...but you're starting to get annoyed by your girlfriend's choice in music, maybe a little bickering over which highway to take or which hotel to stay in that night. Nothing really bad or enough to have the two of you decide to never speak to each other again, but...there has been a few sideways glances and increases in the volume of the radio in order to drown out the other person. You've just finished up sequence 4 of your trip! You've hit a couple setbacks - maybe you hit some snow in Iowa or heavy rain that you didn't expect. Maybe even a flat tire forced you to stop at a gas station or something, but you've plowed through. You've gone through it together, helping and assisting each other.

The trip is building toward something, even though you don't quite know what yet (and I don't mean the final destination). There is a level tension at the very least and you're realizing that if you continue to bicker, if you continue to dwell on the flat tire, that you've actually fixed, the trip will be disaster...it's time to move forward and move forward together. Whether it's a conscious choice or not, you both know this to be true.

You're easing into sequence 5 of your trip. And sequence 5 is the topic of today's episode, and like I said in the previous episode, sequence 5 is kind of a continuation of sequence 4, but with a very important distinction.