As I get older, I realize that timelines start to shift, sometimes in a dramatic way.
Throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, most people are on the same timelines. You go to kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school. Most people go to college or trade school. But some people don’t.
After that, things become less predictable. Some people move across the country or the world. Some people move back to their parents’ house. Some people get jobs that pay well. Some people struggle to make ends meet. Some people find love and get married early. Some people struggle to go on a first date.
The possibilities are endless, and there is no one path that is more correct than the others.
But now that I am 26, I’m realizing how much the paths can diverge and how different things are starting to be for people who were once on the same path as me.
It’s exciting to know that things are changing. Friends, who I have known for half my life, are now making big life decisions—getting married, buying houses, etc.
I often ask myself, what path will I take? Will I strive for a more traditional path or a more unconventional path? Do I even have a choice? As Robert Frost said in The Road Not Taken, “sorry I could not travel both.”
The one thing I do know is that regardless of how much the paths might diverge, it’s important to make checkpoints where the paths come back together. If you don’t make time for the people who matter to you, whether it’s friends or family or both, then the paths can drift farther and farther apart.
Sometimes, even a simple text message saying—Hey, I was thinking of you, hope you’re doing well—is enough to “connect” a path.
To some degree, we don’t get to choose a lot of the things that happen on our path. We don’t get to choose when we fall in love or whether an economic downturn results in the loss of a job. But the thing that we can control is who belongs on our path.
I always tell myself, if you don’t know whether you’re on the right path, that’s ok. But at least know who you want on the path.
Because in the end, that will be more important anyway.
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As I get older, I realize that timelines start to shift, sometimes in a dramatic way.
Throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, most people are on the same timelines. You go to kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school. Most people go to college or trade school. But some people don’t.
After that, things become less predictable. Some people move across the country or the world. Some people move back to their parents’ house. Some people get jobs that pay well. Some people struggle to make ends meet. Some people find love and get married early. Some people struggle to go on a first date.
The possibilities are endless, and there is no one path that is more correct than the others.
But now that I am 26, I’m realizing how much the paths can diverge and how different things are starting to be for people who were once on the same path as me.
It’s exciting to know that things are changing. Friends, who I have known for half my life, are now making big life decisions—getting married, buying houses, etc.
I often ask myself, what path will I take? Will I strive for a more traditional path or a more unconventional path? Do I even have a choice? As Robert Frost said in The Road Not Taken, “sorry I could not travel both.”
The one thing I do know is that regardless of how much the paths might diverge, it’s important to make checkpoints where the paths come back together. If you don’t make time for the people who matter to you, whether it’s friends or family or both, then the paths can drift farther and farther apart.
Sometimes, even a simple text message saying—Hey, I was thinking of you, hope you’re doing well—is enough to “connect” a path.
To some degree, we don’t get to choose a lot of the things that happen on our path. We don’t get to choose when we fall in love or whether an economic downturn results in the loss of a job. But the thing that we can control is who belongs on our path.
I always tell myself, if you don’t know whether you’re on the right path, that’s ok. But at least know who you want on the path.
Because in the end, that will be more important anyway.
