Themeparks, jogging, and life

In the Efteling (theme park) they have a rollercoaster ride called "The Flying Dutchmen". The queue, which starts outside of the building, winds it way through a maze of small rooms inside until finally reaching the ride.

And this is annoying! Much more annoying than if the entire long queue were just visible at one glance. The reason is that each time you enter a new room, you hope that this is the last one. Then when it isn't you're dissapointed. But then of course you hope that this is really the last one... etc.

In contrast, when jogging you want a nice path winding through the woods with lots of twists and turns. Nothing is more discouraging than seeing an endless road stretch on before you into the distance, knowing that you'll have to run all that way. In the forest, you may have no idea how far you still need to go, but you can at least accomplish a smaller goal of reaching the next bend.

The difference between jogging and waiting in a queue? For the queue your goal is the ride, the queue is just an unfortunate necessity. For jogging, the goal is the jogging itself, where you end up isn't really all that important.

Ideally, life is like jogging in the forest, but all too often it feels like waiting in the queue.