Do you ever stop for a second and realize that you've gotten to a point in your life, and you really have no idea what got you here? You think back to every decision you've made, and how it lead you to where you are right now? Then you start thinking about where you would be if, instead of making a gradual right turn, you had taken that opportunity to make a sharp left turn on the road of life...
Here I am, not necessarily unhappy with my life, but definitely not living life to it's fullest and definitely not feeling completely satisfied with where I am. I have a lot of things that would make some people completely satisfied with their lives (i.e. a pretty great job, decent salary, own my own condo and a cool dog!), and I have a lot of things (i.e. a lot of debt and financial responsibility, and very little time to just do whatever I want) that would completely overwhelm some people. But where would I have been if I had chosen a different path than the one I did? What if I had gone to college in Montana, or not gone to college at all? What if I choose to major in Culinary Arts instead of Environmental Science? What if I had decided to pursue a career is science writing as a graduate student? What if I had decided not come back from Australia? What if I had never bought my condo? All of these things, these major decisions in life, and the "what if" of those untraveled roads, have been plaguing me lately. Thinking about this becomes so overwhelming, because no matter what, the decisions have been made and the road has been traveled. The only thing one can do is change the direction they are traveling in the future. But anyone who has changed careers, or moved, or, well...just about anything, know how hard it is to change. How the momentum of life just lets you fly away in one direction before you have time to realize you are already in another time zone and another possible opportunity has passed you by?
On the other hand, what if you HAD decided to take a different path? What if I had stayed in Australia? What if I had gone to college in Montana? Or gone on to graduate school? Where would I be right now? Would I be any happier, would my life be any different? Is where I am right now, right where I am supposed to be right now? What if there is something for me to learn from the life I am living, and the experiences I am having, that will ultimately lead me to a life where I will be happily living life to the fullest, where I will have everything I want?
Are you as overwhelmed as I am now?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Path Not Taken
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5 comments:
i do this all the time, but in much different ways. like, had i never moved up north i wouldnt have been at my cousins so often and i wouldnt have met rob.
or if i had never been friends with shanna i never would have had her over at my house that night, gotten really drunk and made out with rob all night leading up to brandon
I think as long as you are happy that is the most important thing. If you aren't happy then you should change things. It's not always the easiest thing to do to change jobs, move somewhere unknown or go back to school... but I have done them ALL at different times because I wasn't happy where I was. I will never regret taking a chance and trying something new. Even though it was SUPER HARD to make and adjust to those decisions- my life would be far from happy had I stayed where I was- feeling mediocre.
What you wrote describes what was going through my head this morning. I always go back to my dream of being a teacher and teaching at my old grammar school because I LOVED it there. I could have switched my major to education but my mom didn't let me...I know...the one time I listened to her. I can't complain, like you I have a great job (which I love) and I own my coop apt but I just wonder...what if...what if I would have loved teaching just as much. It's an inner conflict I've had for years. WOW, I feel a little comfort knowing I'm not the only one questioning my life.
I often wonder how it would have been different if I had gone to college right out of high school, into the meteorology program, like I was supposed to. But instead I fell in love, stayed home, got her pregnant, got married and worked in a factory for three years until I was able to go to college. It could have turned out so much different, but I don't regret it, I try not to regret things, it just turned out to be a different path than the one it could have been.
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