Ok, so that wasn’t really the quote I was looking for, but it will do.

There have been some odd thoughts rolling through my head, sort of like a mid life crisis or something.  I’ve been thinking about how different life is from what I imagined it would be 20 or so years ago.  It’s rather amazing how many life changing decisions we make (or have made for us) when we are so very young.   And sometimes we make them without much thought.

Think about it.  By the time you turned, say, 25 years old you probably had a career of some sort; decided whether or not you planned to get married to stay single; likely decided whether or not you were going to have children; and likely settled on a place to live.  Right?  And at that point, you sort of thought you had life figured out.  You had an idea about what life would be like at, say, age 50.

My life plan was more vague than most folks but I don’t think I’m where I thought I would be at age 51.  Somewhere deep inside, I think I always thought I would eventually get married.  I can admit that now, but I probably would have denied it years ago.  I also never thought I’d be living in Florida.

In a way, my life has been more like a hike in the woods.  I always planned to get to a certain destination (Point B) and so I started out on a path that looked like it would get me there.  Every day, I got up and walked on the path until…..SQUIRREL!

I ventured off on a side path to see the sights.  And then….SQUIRREL!

Another turn down another path.

And every day, I’d walk further always thinking I’d eventually get back to the path that led to Point B.  Just a bit further, right?  It’s not that far, right?  I can always turn back, right?

Every day I walked a bit further.  Days turned into weeks and months and years.  Always making turns off the path going further and further into the woods to see what there was to see.

And then, one day, I stopped to look at the map and realized how far I had strayed from the path that led to Point B.  There was no way to turn back and retrace the years long hike to get back to where I thought I would go.   So I pick a Point C….or maybe Point M by now….and head toward that new place.

I haven’t figured out if this is good or not. Perhaps many folks stay the course and don’t stray off the path to get to Point B.  While they may win the prize for achieving what they set out to achieve, they likely didn’t see the sights along the way. They were able to ignore the squirrels.  They missed all those side paths with beautiful scenery.

While my personal life has been somewhat of an adventure, my career has not.  I tried to get off the path numerous times but stumbled and always came back to what was “safe”.  I am truly beginning to regret that.  I am way too far along the path to turn back now to start over again.  And therein lies the frustration.

So I’m torn about quotes like this:

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

What happens when you no longer enjoy the journey?