Please indulge a trite metaphor. A road. Life. The only part of the road that’s fixed is what’s behind, but even that’s hard to remember sometimes. Ahead, the ideas for my life diverge—sure, in a wood—but it’s not two roads, it’s three or four or more, swirling in my imagination, spiraling into the unknown.
What if…
I’m not yet out of my twenties, but this decade of my life has been eventful. I have had two clear objectives since I was 18 years old. Writing and teaching. If the road is the decisions I’ve made, and the divergences are the choices to come, my path has and will likely be fairly straightforward, though that doesn’t discourage thoughts from popping into my head of what else could be—web design, real estate, marketing, investing…
I am what I do, or at least, I become what I’ve done. That fixed road behind, even if I can’t remember everything about it, all its accents and curves and stones left unturned, it’s a part of who I am on the road now. And most importantly, it guides me as I make decisions about which divergences in the road, if any, I take in the future.
One might say, the longer the road stretches back, the easier it will be to determine the road ahead. So far, I’ve mostly stayed the course.
As a writer, especially one working alone, which most do, it is unbelievably easy for doubt to enter my life like a shadow monster and eat at my conviction. Existence challenges me. But if I push to the light beyond, I can see that guiding desire at the heart of my ambition. It was never teaching and writing that I was pursuing. I’m pursuing something deeper. Meaning. Living meaningfully.
There is no greater meaning in life than sacrifice. And it doesn’t have to be the ultimate sacrifice. But it always involves letting a part of yourself die. There is no greater purpose in life than serving others. For me, there’s no way around it. So when I begin to consider other options, other paths I could take with greater earning potential or a more guaranteed promotional trajectory, I come to the same conclusion that I am unable to do anything else. Not that I do not have the skills necessary to do another job, but that there is no other job in which I can achieve the level of sacrifice, the degree of living for others, that I can as a teacher.
A major part of my road is writing, which is a form of teaching. A good teacher allows students to learn while enjoying the experience. A good book does the same. Stories hold infinite value to human existence. We need them because we are them, each of us walking on our roads, finding ourselves amongst the conflict that arises and the divergences that dive off in different directions. If we’re lucky, we can see far up ahead and believe that it’s greener there.
I go over the same ideas because it takes years to see results. In the grind, it’s hard to see how daily efforts find fruit in years to come, but I must believe that this pursuit is bettering me, leading me somewhere purposeful. And perhaps the road is not so much about the destination, after all, not even the journey exactly, but the ideals we carry with us on our way.
Onward and upward,
Lee
