For many the thought that you can choose your path is a foreign concept. For them life paths are chosen without their input or willingness. Some may call it fate. Some might call it karma. Some will know it only as oppression.
For those of us who DO believe that we have a choice in the path that we choose, we need to recognize the importance of that choice decision to assess a situation and react or not-react to it in a manner that is in ours and everyone’s best interest.
Sometimes it is as simple as coming to a fork in the road and deciding to go left or right; like “the path less taken” per poet Frost. Other times it is a choice between doing what we know is wrong or right; quickly bringing our personal integrity into sharper focus.
And still other times the choice requires a certain degree of courage and fortitude to do what must be done even at great risk to ourselves—that is recognized as the warrior ethos. It requires discipline and a fearless determination to achieve the intended goal at all costs. This ‘warrior mentality’ is drilled into soldiers from training day-one.
In truth people do what they do for different reasons; they may even react to life’s challenges in certain ways perhaps due to trauma or indoctrination. We are not born pre-programmed to respond to any stimuli automatically or robotically other than our startle response of reacting to perceived threats to our being. The rest is learned through parental guidance (or lack of) and experiential education as soon as the brain can handle input differentiation where the senses can define what is painful or pleasurable about the experience. Not hard to decide those path choices—most of the time you avoid pain and lean toward pleasure.
But there are also other factors for choosing a path beyond the basis of necessities and comfort. Sometimes you have an inner craving to do something or know something beyond what is currently your life. This is Alberto Villoldo (Medical Anthropologist, Psychologist, and Shaman—founder of Four Winds Society) explaining his path change from scientist to shaman:
“You have felt these moments, haven’t you? These moments in life when the invisible brushes against you. Not in the noise of daily life – but in the silence between your breaths. A whisper. A knowing. A reminder that you are more than your stories, more than your fears, more than the wounds you’ve carried for so long.
To this day, I vividly remember my first calling. At first, I hesitated – afraid of the unknown, afraid of my true purpose. But eventually, I decided to follow this calling. It pulled me away from the laboratories of science into the jungles of the Amazon… …where ancient shamans showed me that healing begins not with the body, but with Spirit.
And from then on, my entire life changed. New doorways opened. Synchronicities appeared. I began to live in right relationship – with nature, with my ancestors, with my history, and with my destiny. And I learned that trauma is not what happened to us. Trauma is the story we wove around it. And that story can be released, rewritten, transformed….”
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In essence I would say that unless you are being held against your will, you have a choice in HOW you live your life; a choice in WHAT interests that you pursue; and a choice in WHO you want to be—the person of curiosity and compassion for others, or the unquestioning peripheral appendage functioning primarily from someone else’s agenda.
There are MANY paths you can pursue in this life. Just make sure that the life path you choose is one of heart-based personal fulfillment. That is the only path that will bring both joy and inner satisfaction for your efforts. It will bring you a deep sense of PEACE—knowing that you are doing what you feel meant to do with your life. That inner satisfaction is, or will later be, worth the most to you.
FINDING YOUR TRUTH 