Life Choices: A Virtual Spaghetti Bowl Of Divergent Paths
It was Robert Frost who said –
Two roads diverged in the wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
While the wisdom in those words is indisputable, there’s also risk. The risk is that you believe those divergent paths happen only once or at most a few times throughout life. Reality tells us differently.
Life isn’t a mostly straight line with perhaps a couple of roughly parallel lines from birth to death. It’s brim full of divergent paths. And left and right turns and even the occasional u-turn or loop-the-loop. So the better metaphorical representation might be a spaghetti bowl. Or, to paraphrase –
The roads before me twisted and turned in wondrous and amazing and sometimes frightful ways. And all the paths I chose were unique and made all the difference in my journey.
In short, we get to choose. Every day. Yes, even multiple times per hour, every day. You are faced with life choices that lead to unique and different tomorrows. You are making choices every day that might forever change your life path.
Choose Your Own Adulthood
While this has been a concept that I’ve often pondered, I’ve seldom seen it described in simple terms. In terms that were just gentle reminders that you and I are creating our lives, one moment at a time. Choosing our tomorrows. Choosing our adulthood. Until now.
Hal Runkel has authored a “small book about small choices” aptly named “Choose Your Own Adulthood,” written first as advice to his own daughter as she began college. But the insights are good reminders to all of us that we can make big differences in our lives with seemingly small choices. Not just the big choices of the looming fork in the road. But in the choices we face many times every day.
For the June Grad, or for Dad, or for anyone, I highly recommend it. It’s never too late, or early, to start making conscious, life-changing choices.
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