The Road Less Travelled
Sometimes, quite by chance, fueled by just the right amount of wine, just the right amount of stress, and just the right sentiments in a movie or book, we question who we are, where we are going, and what we are doing with our lives.
It's a weird feelingwhen you hit one of these momentsbecause as much as your rational mind says “you have a perfectly good life here, with people who love you, and care about you”, your irrational mind (that has been sucked in temporarily by said movie/book escapism) tells you that opportunities exist for you to “choose life”, to “choose adventure”, to live a life slightly less predictable and less formulaic than the one you currently live.
As much as you might start thinking about the “chances” (for want of a better phrase) that exist for you to live that escapist life style, you also know that the life that exists through a sliding door in a movie causes wreckage behind it that Hollywood never touches upon.
For every chance encounter that changes the path of people's lives, there are other lives that are damaged. Careers that are wasted. Colleagues who are caused immense hardship, and of course hearts that are broken. That's why hollywood remains on the “silver screen”, and why we cry when we watch movies. At least a little of one of the tears carries “what might have been” in our own lives.
As we travel through this life we make decisions, and we live with them. We meet people, and through meeting them both our own life and that of those around us are changed.
Should we anticipate a path before it arrives, or choose when we find ourselves at a crossroads? Should we try to change paths after making such decisions?