Someone much wiser than me said something to the effect of, when you come to a fork in the road, take the path less traveled. Robert Frost said that. Or…was in Dumbledore?
Whoever it was it’s a nice idea, in theory. I think most of us like to romantically imagine that that’s what we’re doing, or at least that it’s what we would do if we were at a literal fork in the road.
But the thing is, it’s not so easy, is it? I mean, imagine for a moment that you’re cruising down a smoothly paved road and you come to a fork. To the left, the road continues without obstacles, smooth cruising as far as the eye can see. To the right it’s full of rocks and potholes and brush and it doesn’t look like anyone has driven down it for about a decade. You’re not even sure your car can make it, and even if it does, it will surely be scratched and beat up by the end.
And let’s imagine too that you have a compass and that you’re trying to go True North because that’s the direction you know you need to go (in your heart of hearts) if you are to arrive at where you long to be.
You check the compass, hoping it will point you to the left, but knowing deep down that it will not. Sure enough, it indicates that True North is right down that bumpy overgrown road. The smooth paved path to the left takes you West, which is the direction you’ve been driving your entire life. It’s a familiar direction, seemingly predictable, known. You feel comfortable driving West. But…something inside you keeps telling you that you need to go north.
See, this is where the rubber hits the road.
Like most of you, I have often chosen the comfortable, familiar, “smooth” road. Why? Because taking the other road is scary as f*ck!
So as much as we might romanticize about taking that proverbial “path less traveled,” we are creatures of habit right down to our neurological wiring. Our self-proclaimed pursuits of growth and change are constantly being undercut by the biological urge to keep both feet planted in the known, the familiar, the apparent safety of a life to which we have become accustomed.
Choosing a new path takes attention, intention, and a significant act of bravery.
I’ve heard it said that we will often choose familiar misery over the possibility of an unknown joy. Think about that! It’s like saying that we’d rather stay in a familiar hail storm than go to Mexico and enjoy the sun, which is something most of us would confidently say, “that’s dumb and that’s not what I would choose! I want the sun, baby!”
But do you? For most of us, it doesn’t take too much reflection to discover that we are, mostly, following habitual patterns of behaviour and emotion even if we consistently dislike the outcomes they generate.
Dr. Joe Dispenza explains this phenomenon from a biochemical perspective. He describes the way our bodies become accustomed to chemical cocktails that are released when we feel certain emotions. We become so habituated (and in some sense addicted) to these bio-chemicals that they feel like they are “us,” and if we go too long without a “hit” of these “drugs of choice” we start to feel antsy and, from his perspective, will literally go so far as to unconsciously seek out circumstances that will provide us with the emotions (and thus the chemicals) that make us feel like “ourselves.” What does this mean in practice? It means that if you swam in a sea of stress and grief from the moment of conception and throughout the gestation process and your developmental years, you may have unwittingly confounded stress and grief with the concept of self with which you define yourself.
Now, you can take or leave Dispenza’s explanation, but I think we all have to acknowledge the pull of habitual patterns on our behaviour. It’s both troubling and incredibly human.
And there is something so tender and heartbreaking about it, because I think the compulsion to stay securely in the familiarity of habitual existence is rivaled only by the human impulse to walk out past the edge of the known and see what’s there.
I know for myself I am often haunted by this kind of inner tension between the part of me that wants to just be safe and secure and to live in a reliable and predictable world and the part of me that wants to know the f*cking truth, that wants to go out into the wilderness down that bumpy overgrown road and see where it leads.
And…it’s okay to choose the easy way sometimes. I think we also need to be gentle with ourselves and not get too aggressive or forceful. Life is generous enough to present many, many forks on the road. We seem to get lots of opportunities to change course. So be gentle. But also remember this: you don’t have forever. You’ll die one day, just like the rest of us. Go out into the forest or look up at a tree or sit with a candle and ask yourself, as Mary Oliver so poetically inquires, “What is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious life?”
Pause at the fork. Maybe just go a few steps down that bumpy, overgrown road to see how it feels. Perhaps bring a friend along so that it’s more an adventure and less a martyrdom.
I think there is a tendency to look at the people who are living the types of lives that we say we want and to imagine that they got there on a smoothly paved highway. Perhaps some of them did. But I’m willing to bet that more often than not, those people made choices that were not easy. They risked ruining their cars by driving down paths that most of us avoid.
What kind of life do you want to live? Are you going to follow your North Star? Or are you going to choose familiarity and perceived safety?
The catch is…none of these paths are actually truly secure or safe. I know…it’s unfortunate and terrifying. Death is coming for all of us whatever path we choose. There are no guarantees. Things happen.
What path will you choose today?