When the Path is Uncertain

I have been envisioning my future life since I was young. This is the case with many of us, we imagine a world of possibilities and as we get older, go through school and discover what we enjoy, where we excel, where we don’t, our paths become a little bit clearer. But I have always found joy in many avenues and I have always been able to hop between different visions for the future. This is the way my mind works; I constantly envision multiple pathways for myself, across numerous career paths. I can see the connections between things and so the path that I envision for myself is not straight and narrow, and relatively easy to follow, but rather wide and winding, full of branches that lead to new possibilities. This way of thinking is a blessing in many respects; I am quick to dig myself out of a sense of feeling trapped because there are many avenues out of that feeling, but, on the other hand, the seemingly boundless array of choices can be paralyzing. I joke that it is the Libra in me, but the reality is that a decision is very difficult to make when the possibilities are wide open. And the follow through on actions that come from making that decision are even harder. The possibilities may be endless, but so too are the number of things that I could focus on and invest the energy into pursuing.

The phenomenon of a wide, open road often leads me to a place where I am, overall, content, but simultaneously experiencing a small undercurrent of dissatisfaction. I constantly feel impatient because my life has not yet reached the destination that I envision for it. My attention is often stretched across numerous possibilities and the focus that is required to meet an “end goal” is limited. Deciding on and, more importantly, achieving a goal, creating tangible evidence that I am actually doing something can sometimes feel like parting the Red Sea. It feels like an impossible task that. The most frustrating thing is that on some level, I know this does not need to be the case and that if I could only do something, I would actually create the freedom that I want.

To start with, the life that I want for myself is difficult to define. Even from a young age, I have always envisioned a future steeped in creativity, which may sound nice, but certainly is not a recipe for a clear career path that is nicely framed in, complete with a lovely a set of stepping-stones that I only need follow to succeed*. The life of a quasi-creative who doesn’t want to rely solely on her wares in order to make ends meet is much less clear. At the end of the day, the thing I am searching for is not a tangible thing. I seek freedom. It is not something quantitative, but a quality that must be continuously sought every day, something that I must consciously create in my life. I have written a story for my life in which I can reach the goal, the freedom, that I crave. I have given myself a semblance of control by defining some of the particulars in my life that I can then build around, namely the career that several years ago was not clear to me. The path that I’ve laid for myself, however, is not set in stone. This is a necessity for me as I quest for that sense of freedom. I must allow myself to have the space to evolve, to shift, when the need arises.

So, the question becomes, how to I complete this task, or series of tasks, that will lead me to the life that I want for myself, a life in which I feel fulfilled and energized rather than drained and aimless. In this moment, my path is taking me into the world of education as the means through which I can support myself while still leaving myself the space to pursue creative ventures. And, of course, I am passionate about education, about helping my students encounter new ideas and think in different way (you have to have passion for education to survive the bureaucracy).

However, there is still one big challenge that. I may have defined my path to the point where I can follow something resembling of path; I have created goals that I can strive for each day while still leaving myself the space to create but I still struggle with disparities between what I am experiencing in this moment and the sort of life that I envision for myself someday in the future. I feel as though I am fighting a never-ending battle with impatience to arrive at that place, that time when I feel nearly, if not completely, free. I have two option as I face this dilemma— the first; I can tell myself that the time will come, but I must first struggle through the intro-to-adulting levels of financial security, career success etc. so that I may one day have my freedom. The second option, the one that is certainly more appealing, is to foster that sense of freedom in my life now. I may not yet have the financial freedom that I desire (I am at least a couple years from that) and I am in the process of seeking career pathways that will lead me down that path. But, ultimately, there is no speeding these processes up— I must simply go through them and with time, and persistence, I will achieve my financial and professional goals that certainly will lend themselves to that feeling of freedom. But the space to create, the connection, and emotional freedom that I desire I can pursue now. The only thing stopping me is the voice in my head that says that the first option is the way to go. But by following that first option, by listening to the voice that says “one day, but not now” I would literally be stealing time from myself.

This post in the inception of my blog. It serves as a reflective practice that I will utilize to share my journey towards the life that I envision for myself. The site itself is an exercise in manifesting the experience I want to have in my life, it is a record of my creative, minimalist, compassionate approach to live… at least I hope that it the impression I give from my lifestyle. My intention is to share my struggles and successes as well as the exercises and sources that give me new ways of thinking.

Join me on my journey.

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*I am not implying here that people who choose a career path that is well laid out do not need to work, only that part of the work does not rest in you defining that next step. The nature of creating careers in the humanities, arts etc. is that we don’t always know what the next step is and we must invest energy is deciding and following through on those decisions. For someone like me, who has always struggled with follow-through, this is a massive challenge.