It got me thinking: I had the freedom to turn around any time I wanted. I felt the desire to turn around somewhere between the start and end of the street. But I ended up walking to an end of the street as marked by a street sign. It felt better, mentally, to stop at a preexisting stopping point/boundary than to do it somewhere where a point/boundary wasn’t marked out. Human tendency towards order, I suppose (aside from those of us who choose chaos). Neat little quirk of human brains.


Maybe it’s a similar effect to OCD, except not compulsive or a disorder, when you get stress relief from completing some arbitrary task like that.