Follow Your Own Road

Rumi said, “It’s your road and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”

When we try to walk down another persons road, it leads to disillusionment and disappointment. It isn’t “our” road. In the book “The Pilgrimage”, Paulo Coelho said that “it is our decision to walk, that creates the road ahead of us”.

It is both being courageous and having curiosity, that keeps us forging ahead on the path. It is the journey itself, that grows us as a person. It has been said that it’s never about obtaining the “goal”. It is rather about who you need to become, to achieve the goal. Marianne Williamson said, “you must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.”

I have always loved the saying, “It’s not the destination,… it’s the journey”. This is because the path isn’t the destination. The path is where we live our life. It is all of life’s experiences. The good, bad, and the ugly. The messy pieces as well as the glorious adventures. The destination is simply a road sign. A sign that we made it to “X”. Then we begin planning a new destination or goal. It’s all about the road we choose, the path we forge.

So cast off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds and see where they take you.