They say, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” That has never been more true than right now. We are at a crossroads of time and space, where more than ever we are capable of living a life that is sculpted truly by our hands trying to choose the right path.
A life that is uniquely suited to every random and non-random aspect of our unique selves. A life that is built to suit us so perfectly that we spend all of our waking time in some sort of flow state.
So why do I even ask the question, if we should do it our way or the world’s way? Haven’t I already answered the question? We should do it our way you are thinking.
Duh, you are giving away the climax before the story has even begun, right?
There Are Two Kinds Of People
You’ve probably heard of this other saying (it’s a day for inane sayings, isn’t it) – “There are two kinds of people on this planet, the one kind likes to divide everyone into lists, and the other one doesn’t care.” Or something to that effect. Binary systems especially in delineating human beings don’t work well in my opinion.
So there are in fact, hundreds of thousands of different kinds of people. But for simplification’s sake, let’s assume that there are only two kinds of people.
One kind is the one who wants to live a life engineered by their hand. They love the idea of building their lives, piecemeal by piecemeal, in a carefully crafted creative way. They live and thrive on that.
The other kind is the one who hates, dislikes, abhors, and resents the idea of building their own life. They like being told what to do. Perhaps, they like the idea of following a crowd.
They don’t want to think. Thinking is hard work and they would rather elect a government that does all of the thinking for them.
Which path is the right one?
There Are No Universal Right Paths, Only Right Paths For You
The right path is that path that is right for you. Which isn’t going to be the right path for someone else, which is going to end up perhaps being the wrong path for yet another person.
The right path.
The only path. Doesn’t exist.
It doesn’t.
We are all going to live random and convoluted paths because we are all on separate paths. But my path isn’t better than yours. And your path isn’t better than mine.
Your path is right for you because you are on it for the moment. And my path is right for me because it is the path I am on right at this moment.
Why should I fight with you because you are on a different path? I don’t want to be on that path, and I shouldn’t be bothered by the fact that you are on a different path.
Live Your Path – It Takes Enough Energy Just To Do That
There are many people that I encounter in this life who are so intent on changing everyone else’s path. They might be on a path that makes absolute sense to them and works wonders for them. But for some reason, they imagine that just because the path works for them, it should work for everyone else as well.
Wrong!
You couldn’t be wronger.
A path is unique to its owner. And believe me, if I started randomly living your path when it wasn’t designed for me, I would feel the repercussions faster than you could say ‘Hallelujah.’
It is so hard to live and be alive on our path. If we spend a lot of time building our path, or following others, either way, the decision itself has been made. And now we have to live this life.
Living life takes effort. Living a path, whatever that path might be, takes effort. Enormous effort.
So why are we wasting so much of our effort, time, and energy on convincing others of the validity and rightness of only our path?
If There Are A Hundred Yous, There Are A Hundred Paths
My sister is a unique soul and she’s living her unique path. But she used to say to me when I was younger, “You judge me for my path, yet I do not judge you for yours. Why are judging me for my choices?”
That is when I realized I had to stop doing that to others. There are a billion different kinds of people (or more if taking into account history). Could it be that there is only one path for all of these different souls?
So what about all of those people in the past who were living a different kind of life from us right now? Are they to be all condemned posthumously because they didn’t live our path?
Who decides what is the right path? Is there a committee about that? Or is it religion that tells us of the right path?
But then which religion? Which political system? Which country’s policies?
There are no correct paths. There are no right paths. Only your path and my path.
Okay So You Choose To Engineer Your Life, Right?
I am one of those people who has chosen to highly engineer her life because I wasn’t satisfied with the status quo. In the past, I used to judge those people who had chosen to stick with the status quo.
But now I am in my 30s, and those people who are stuck with the status quo are all rich, comfortable, and set for life. Whereas, I who had eschewed conformity all of her life, and beaten her head against the damned system, is now living a life considered by many to be less than those of mongrels (a bit of a poetic license here).
I live a good life according to my standards because I love being free. Freedom is more important to me than comfort. But others look at me, and they think, “Wow, you live a tough life.”
Isn’t it weird, how different perspectives can be?
My Point Is Engineer Or Not, Every Life Counts
Okay, so I have been blathering on for the past 1000 words, and here’s why. I think and I believe now that every life matters. Every path matters.
My path isn’t more important because it has been engineered.
And your path isn’t more important because it has followed the norms.
It doesn’t matter either way in the grand scheme of things. Neither one of us is going to get a huge windfall at Heaven’s Gate, because boy, oh boy, we followed the rules or boy, oh, boy, we didn’t follow the rules.
You are living a life of conformity, but are you doing the best you can every single day? Yes, okay, you are a winner.
You are living a life engineered to its knuckles, but are you doing the best you can every single day? We have another winner.
Do you see my point? It took me a while to get here, but it was sweeter because of it. Wasn’t it?? Tell me it was just to placate me.
The Story Doesn’t End Here
I am not done yet (sorry if you were hoping I was).
When I was younger, and less wise than I am right now (or wiser, perhaps), I followed my parents’ orders for my life to the T. Like a fiend, I followed everything they told me. I wanted to be the good daughter, and so I listened and I worked, and I conformed like nobody’s business.
Okay, so I did that to the best of my ability.
Eventually, I got sick and tired of it, and I quit all of that and started engineering my ideal life. I did my best at that.
Both ends of the spectrum. I loved them both. I have enjoyed and done well with both of them.
They were both right for me for where I was in the stage of my development.
Therefore, the conclusion again is that there are no wrong paths.
And In Fact, You Will Go Through Several Iterations Of Right Path Finding
Just as I did, and will probably go through in the future, you will as well, go through many iterations of path scrambling.
You know how we scramble an egg, and everyone’s scrambled eggs look completely different from everyone else’s? That’s how life is.
Life has never been compared to scrambled eggs before, but I am going to do it.
Even if I end up getting the same ingredients for my scrambled egg life as you do, my egg mixture and my result is going to be completely different from yours. It is inevitable!
Then, why do we squabble with each other over this nonsense? Oh, my life is better than yours, and your life is poorer than mine.
This Life Will Outgrow Us Someday – The Right Path Will Change
Remember that this life that you are leading right now will outgrow you someday. The life that suits you brilliantly right now might in a few years be suffocating and will need to be shed like a snake’s skin.
We are constantly growing and changing. But we cannot go back to our younger selves and say to them, “God, you are such an idiot. You are stupid. You don’t know anything. If you knew anything, you would have chosen the life that I have right now.”
You cannot do that. You would not do that. Because you know about progression and that everyone has to progress through certain planes, or levels, to get to where they are.
You didn’t get to where you are by skipping levels. You worked at it, and eventually, you are here.
But someone else might be behind you in their stage of development, so it will take them a few more years, months, or decades to get to where you are.
How can we judge them?
Can You Judge A Child For Not Becoming An Adult Faster?
You would never judge a child for not becoming an adult faster. You wouldn’t reprimand them and say, “You should try harder, be more like me. Look at me, I’m an adult. I did it. You can do it, too. Just try harder. Work longer hours. Write more.”
Hmm, no, that would not work.
That’s because you cannot hurry up development like that.
You cannot say to someone you are living at a level that is below me, so you are inferior to me.
Nah, bro. That doesn’t work. That doesn’t work no good at all.
So let’s not judge each other. You are not more developed than someone else. Or they aren’t worse off than you. They are on their path. And you are on your path.
What Do You Choose Then? Your Right Path Or Not?
The question, therefore, must be repeated. What do you choose?
Of course, the answer must be repeated as well. Whatever works best for you. Best for you… Not for someone else. We are not choosing the lives that worked for our parents, or our ancestors. We are not choosing lives that worked well for our colleagues or for celebrities.
The choice is to choose for ourselves. Choose what works for you in this particular moment. Because that will change as well. It will change more rapidly than you can imagine, so another lesson would be to not get attached to the plan or the path. You don’t know when you will be asked to take a detour over to something else.
The choice matters more than the path, I think sometimes. If you are living the world’s way, because you have chosen to live that way, then I commend you. If you are living your way, because you want to be with the in-crowd, then I do not commend you. I pity you.
Do Not Judge If You Do Not Want To Be Judged
There are way too many spiritual people nowadays (and I fall into this horrible habit myself), who are spending more of their time judging others who are not on their path and not spending any time working upon themselves.
They are too busy telling others why they should live their lives in a manner that is similar to theirs. “You should become a vegetarian, because you are a horrible person if you don’t.” “You should become a digital nomad because that is the wave of the future.” “You should get a cat because only losers get dogs.”
Well, that last one, perhaps is just for fun.
But you get the idea.
Why are we judging others? Do not judge others, and then tell me you are being spiritual. Or you are living the good life.
What’s Your Right Path?
When you are living in the epic flow state of your life, you will not have time to judge others. You are going to come back to center over and over again, because you are living an epic life, and you don’t have time to waste on nonsense.
Sometimes people will come to me adamant and angry about Trump or something else useless, and I will think to myself, so if you have all of this energy to spare on those emotions, I can’t imagine how much more you could produce if you redirected all of that energy.
Do not get me wrong. I do the same sometimes. Wasting my energy on gossip or other useless tasks, should be redirected to living the best version of my life.
Take this moment right now. Come back to your grounding, to your center. And remember this last bit of advice from me.
“Live whatever way you want to, in the best way possible for you. But do not judge others for living differently. Forget about the others. Be ultra focused on your work, so much so that the entire world disappears for you.”
Got it?
Now go live it.
