Someone Else's Path

“If you see your path laid out in front of you -- Step one, Step two, Step three -- you only know one thing... it is not your path. Your path is created in the moment of action. If you can see it laid out in front of you, you can be sure it is someone else's path. That is why you see it so clearly.”
-- Joseph Campbell

I spend a certain amount of time and emotional energy feeling somewhat lost these days. I've re-formatted my entire life around a new set of principals. I've let myself imagine the life I never dared to dream of and am trying to trust that this life will materialize. I'm making all of my decisions within the context of my true passions, but I don't have a rigid structured path to follow. On the one hand this is difficult, yet on the other I'm growing to see the wisdom in it.

In what now seems nearly foreign to me, my former life had a clear and recognizable path. I graduated from high school and went to a nice college. I graduated college and got a good job. I married a good man, we got a good little dog. (I did fail to have the good kids..........) My career progressed to another good job. ...........and yet the whole time I was terribly unhappy. Worst of all I couldn't understand why. I had all the stuff in place that I was supposed to have. I had a nice house, a new car, I was even on the society pages a few times. And it was completely empty. I was never going to find joy along someone else's imaginary path.

At the end of the day I want more. I want to wake up with a lightness of spirit and anticipation of the day ahead. I want dread to become a distant memory. I want to live a joyful life and bring joy into other people's lives. I can't do that unless I'm living the life I truly want to live. The truth is that there is no way that I could possibly plan the next steps conclusively without closing the door inadvertently to the infinite possibilities that exist. There is no clear path because there is but one of me and if I'm ever to sort it all out I'm beginning to realize that when I arrive wherever it is that I am going, I could have never anticipated the path that took me there. As my grandmother Clara used to say, "I've never been lost forever."