Mind the path

My first Substack collaboration

Believe it or not, I have an editor. Before being an editor, Simona is my friend - a very supportive one (also a very critical one). The following is my first collaboration here on Substack and it is also an open invitation to anyone who is interested in collaborating. This collaboration is simple: Simona provides the text, I provided the photos. Keeping it short and sweet, all I want to say is: Thank you, Simona!

They say life is a highway and we all travel our own roads, some good, some bad, yet each is a blessing of its own. Everybody has their own story; everybody has their own journey. It’s common to wonder about your life’s direction at certain ages, during adolescence or at mid-life, but honestly, at one point or another , we all ask ourselves these big questions. Especially when we know that the track we’re on, it’s not the one for us. We’re either going too fast, forgetting to enjoy the view, either too slow, or we get lost around the corners sometimes by choice, sometimes due to forces beyond our control. We all want to find meaning and fulfillment, making the best use of our limited time on Earth. We often hear phrases such as “ find your passion “,or “do what you love,” which make it sound as if finding just the right thing to do in life will fix all of your other problems. So, how do we select a path through life? And is there really only one path to take? Or, is it realistic to expect one interest or choice to sustain us for a lifetime? Even when you think you’re sure what you want in life, you may have to dodge some curveballs.

Life doesn’t always go as planned, so your path might change whether you want it to or not. In addition, our brains continue to grow and evolve over the course of our lifespan, so things that mattered earlier may matter less over time. When our opinions and desires change over the years, we sometimes wonder if we’ve wasted our lives, or if we’re missing out on new experiences that seem out of reach. And once we choose a path, we’re often afraid to break from that course, sticking with old routines and habits. We let our fear of the unknown keep us from new experiences, but we surely know that it’s time for a change. Sometimes we look for a different road only because we regret our previous choices and instead of embracing a change, we beat ourselves up over the mistakes that led us there. In many cases, when we were young, no one could have talked us out of taking a certain path. It’s as if it were our destiny. But sooner or later, one way or another, we know when we are on the wrong track. At birth, we’re born with a handful of out-of-the-box and scripted potential life paths, inherited from our parents, our culture, our country, or our religion. We see paths before us and act accordingly, choosing the ones we feel best suit us based on what little we know about ourselves at the time. Sometimes we forget that those paved roads before us were once no road at all, but a trace of a trail in the wilderness trampled by someone who knew little more than we do. But we’re a unique creatures, we can’t simply follow another’s path by the book. We may look to others’ paths for clues forward, but it takes time and great work to decipher something nearing a map to ourselves — which direction to take, how to choose at a crossroad, when to follow paths, and when to make trails. This takes tremendous faith and trust. But it’s how life actually works. It’s messy. And it’s chaos out there. The truth is, life pushes us to change and go off tracks, in order to learn, mature and evolve. We’re bound to make mistakes if we took the roads less traveled but we also learn great lessons and gain skills that enable us to find the real path for us, our own way home. When you believe you are on the wrong path, you have to ask yourself if there is a better path available to you. If not, you must open yourself up to the unknown, to uncertainty, and explore what you can create in your life out of nothing. Sometimes it is worth taking that leap. The truth is, we’re true travellers — walking, wandering, exploring, and figuring it out as we go. We select among the paths life affords, and then, when those paths no longer work for us, we change them, adapt and adjust as necessary. The tricky part is that while we are editing our trails, our trails are also shaping us.

So, Is there a Right Path? My beloved father who will turn 86 next month, changed his career at the age of 40, going on a completely different trajectory. The bread winner of our family of 6 , he jumped into the unknown, trading his regular income for a dream of fulfilment. Many years later, encouraged by his success, I took the same leap of faith, changing my life completely, trading in everything I had:my job, my relationship, my country, and brooking my heart in the process. Was it worth it? Oh, yeah! But if I ask my father now to reflect on his life journey, he’ll say:” I am not what I expected “! Who we are now is different from who we were and who we will become. So the short answer is “no”, there is no “right “ path, and the truth is, our journey along the way is what make us and often times it leads us away from what we expected. Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads are, because the journey will be incomplete without the struggle. We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means the big, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising. Just like life.

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