Choosing My Own Path
Most people spend decades chasing something that someone else convinced them they should want. They imitate, follow, go with the flow. Then one day, they look back and realize they never stopped to ask if any of it would actually make them happy.
That hit me hard when I read it in Derek Sivers’ Anything You Want. Because I know what it’s like to be on that path. For years, I moved along the conveyor belt of expectations: work in the family business, get married, stay the course. The business was stable, successful, and by all means a safe bet in terms of financial factors. But inside, I felt the walls closing in. A toxic dynamic with my cousin only amplified what I already knew deep down: I was living someone else’s idea of success.
My divorce and leaving the business happened around the same time. They were messy, painful, destabilizing; exactly the kind of disruption most people spend their lives trying to avoid. But they also forced me to stop imitating and start creating. To ask: what do I actually want my one life to look like?
I didn’t have a lightning bolt answer. I still don’t, not entirely. But I know the pull of creative work, of building something that matters to me, of showing my daughter that it’s possible to live in a way that resonates with your truth. And every time I veer back toward distraction or easy imitation, I try to remember that feeling: what it was like to realize I had been drifting, and the relief of finally steering my own way.