Today I have been thinking a lot about how and where we end up in life. How did I end up on the career path I did, and the home I live in with the husband I live with? How did he end up here? And how far back are things set in motion? How much of it was simply my decisions and how much of it was my parents or even grandparents?
I won’t swear to still believe this in a year, or even a week…but I think life is a series of choices. We reach a branch in the road we are traveling and we can go left or right.
When I was growing up choose your own adventure books were a big thing. You would finish a chapter and you had to choose one of the two (or sometimes three) options for the story to continue. I loved them. I soaked them up like I still soak up books today. But there was this one thing…I was always really stressed that my choice would make the book end badly. So, I would try to cheat and read option a, but then go back and read option b and figure out which one I liked better.
Honestly, thinking about it now gives me a serious headache.
But that’s like life, isn’t it? We reach the end of one chapter and we have to choose…but we can’t read ahead to see how it goes before we have to commit to a choice. So we worry about every choice we have made and where it has led us and where we are going from here.
But, then there is this idea of fate. Things happen when they are supposed to, in the exact way they are supposed to. Which would mean we could just float through life without a care – because what will happen (good, bad or indifferent) is going to happen with or without our help, encouragement, efforts or even awareness?
But what if life is somewhere in the middle? What if we are on a path that is set out for us? What if that path isn’t so much a straight line but twisty with lots of forks in the road? Maybe, I’m saying, there is a path that starts at the beginning and ends at the end, but gives us the option to choose the details.
And because of that, we have to choose to be present or not, to be happy or not, to value every moment and adventure and experience.
Your life is your story – choose your own adventure…wisely.
Mind-blowing, right?
