Sometimes our paths are straight. We graduate from High School, we get a job or goto college, and everything goes exactly as planned. Sometimes our paths are unexpected. We meet someone and decide to go where there path leads. We get a chance to travel somewhere and decide to stay. We get a rare opportunity to do something exciting and it takes us somewhere new and into new opportunities and choices. Sometimes our path is a mixture of all of these.
So who cares? People put a lot of power into plans and expectations, the map of how a life should go, but so what? So what if you got a degree and then didn’t start working in that field? Maybe the degree wasn’t about the field but about the journey? Maybe it was about opportunities and options. Maybe it turns out that the degree led you down a path you decided you didn’t want to follow? So what if you’ve had several jobs in several years? We are long past the time when people stay at jobs for a lifetime and retire with a pension. Besides government jobs and unions I don’t think pensions are even an option any more. So what does it matter that you don’t stay put. Are your bills paid? Good. Then your life is your own. Go live it.
I think paths are best mapped in retrospect. Yes, that usually comes with some regret, but with finite time and limited resources, only some options can be chosen. Others have to be left behind. There should, however, be a lot of pleasure and happiness and amazement at where we’ve come and what lays ahead. If there is a may of our future, it is something left behind by someone who went before. Good for you if you can find it. For those individuals who are blazing their own trail, don’t worry about what direction your path is taking, just go for it. That way you’ll have fewer regrets when you look back.
