Babbling About Branching Paths

A friend once told me that life is like a movie. Everyone’s life is made up of multiple movies that are constantly playing. Depending on the decisions a person makes, sometimes they walk from one movie reel to another. Everyone has their own movie reels, and sometimes the movie reels overlap with other people for a time before the people move on. The same principle has also been explained with paths or roads countless times. Personally, I like the concept of movies reel, but it is harder to relate to other people than the age-old tradition of roads being the paths in life.

Recently, I feel like everywhere I turn, a new branch appears in the road I am walking down in life, and someone I know walks away from me on that new path. Life can feel like it is standing still sometimes, but when everyone you know is making major life-changing decisions, it makes a person stop to wonder. Are you the one standing still?

When I peer closer at the roads my friends have taken recently, I see a lot of people struggling for hope. Hope in jobs, in relationships, and in life. This past year, at least seven people have told me they want to quit what they are currently doing to work in a different field or pursue a different career.

One of the most shocking discoveries was from an old friend who moved away at the end of college. He has been planning to go into the art field for years. Suddenly, he is no longer interested in art. Money is more important now, apparently. He can do art on the side, he says. How can something that is a dream for years and years become a side-project in just a couple of year’s time? How can something that was worked so hard towards be abandoned like that? Then I think of my neglected writing.

My childhood dream was to become a “real writer”, but I haven’t written anything significant since high school. Over the past year, I have done more towards my writing dream than I have in a very long time. Most of that involved attending conferences and networking, but it’s significantly more than I did in the past. Now comes the most crucial step- for me to sit down and write again on a more regular basis. To help with this, I signed up for NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/).

Yes, I know I’m crazy. Who knows if I’ll even finish a chapter in this writing escapade? But at least I am trying to not let my dream slip away; trying not to be one of those who settles for what life hands down. Settling never equates to contentment. The sweetest joys in life also tend to be the hardest to grasp and the most work to achieve. At least I’m trying.

Most of the people I know, are taking up the torch again to walk down a new path towards their dreams. While I am happy for them pursuing their dreams, it also makes me sad because I wonder if their paths will branch in a direction that will ever cross my path again…?