Decision Points Along Life's Path

When I was 17, I had a decision to make: whether to attend the state university, located in the western part of the state and about a three-or four-hour drive from home, or to go to a lesser-known, but supposedly prestigious school in the heart of Boston.  If I chose the former, I would live in a campus dormitory, be more immersed in college life, and have a chance to play hockey.  If I selected the latter, college would feel more like a part-time activity, there would be no hockey, and I’d have to commute from home, which meant spending two to three hours on a bus every day.

My parents wanted me to go to the school in the city and live at home for a variety of reasons.  I wanted to go to the state university for my own, opposite, reasons.  Despite their pressure, they said that the ultimate decision would be mine.  I bowed to the pressure and chose the urban school.

The commuting was a drag, and the city had too many distractions.  I never really felt like I was a college student, I fell into bad habits, and I did poorly.  I dropped out in my second semester and didn't know what to do with myself.  I decided to join the navy, and before I entered the service, I also decided to marry the girl I had been dating since the summer after high school. 

The wedding was to be after I finished my training and before my first posting.  I was a month past my 20th birthday – and she was 18 – when we tied the knot.  I was about a year and a half older when I found out she had been cheating on me while I was stationed half a world away.  We called it quits, and I went wild.

The next year was filled with hard-core partying.  My gang drank a lot, and there was a lot of sex; I was almost out of control.  I tried marijuana one time, but it didn't really do much for me, and I didn't want to risk my security clearance, so I never got into drugs. 

When my time was over, I left the navy.  I was still trying to figure out what to do with myself.  I tried several crutches, but was still pretty lost.

Then I went back into the navy, got married to a girl I had only known for a few months, went to Japan, lost my New England accent, had two beautiful children, got out of the navy and moved to Colorado, got divorced again, completed my university studies, fell deeply in love and got just as deeply hurt, decided to work at a PR agency, left after two years, worked for a state lottery, got into weight lifting, lived in a “sex, booze and rock n’ roll” apartment community, fell in love and got hurt again, moved back east for a while then returned to Colorado and got into dancing, had a great job in a project management firm, worked in South America, lived in the Colorado mountains, then moved to Ukraine, and…

Wait a minute!  Let’s go back and try that again.

Alternative 1

My parents wanted me to go to the university in the city for a variety of reasons.  I wanted to go to the state university for my own, opposite, reasons.  Despite their pressure, they said that the ultimate decision would be mine.  I did what I felt was right for me, and I went to the state university.

My four years at the university were great.  I played hockey and did pretty well but wasn’t quite good enough to play in the pros.  I studied journalism and got into law as well.  I broke up with the girlfriend I had been dating during the summer after high school, and I had several different girlfriends while I was in school.  But I never got serious with any of them – I was too busy with hockey, studying and parties.

I partied a lot, but never really lost control.  I tried some marijuana, but it didn’t really do much for me, and I didn’t want to risk the hockey career I thought I might have, so I never got into drugs. 

After receiving my degree in journalism, I had to decide between two job offers.  One was at a daily paper in central Maine, and the other was way out west in Wyoming.  I decided that the adventure of living in the Wild West was too good to pass up, so I moved to Casper and joined the staff of the city paper. 

Soon I got an offer to get involved in some radio and television work, and I made a strong effort to lose my New England accent.  After several years of doing both print and broadcast work in Casper, I got a great job offer down south in Denver.  That’s where I met the girl I would marry. 

We had two beautiful children, I moved up and became a managing editor, we got divorced, I started drinking and partying, I decided to change everything and take a job in Alaska, I fell deeply in love and got just as deeply hurt, I moved to tiny hamlet deep in the Alaskan forest where I lived alone and grew hemp, and…

No, wait a minute.  Let’s back up again.

Alternative 1-b

After receiving my degree in journalism, I had to decide between two job offers.  One was at a daily paper in central Maine, and the other was way out west in Wyoming.  I decided that I should stay in New England, which was the only region I really knew and I could be closer to my family. 

I worked on the paper for a couple of years then got a better job in Portland.  That’s where I met the girl I would marry.  We had three beautiful children, I earned an advanced law degree, became editor-in-chief of the paper, got into politics and became governor of Maine, and we all lived happily ever after.

OK.  That sounds nice… boring, but nice.

So Many Possible Paths

These examples illustrate just a tiny fraction of the many possible paths a person’s life might take.  It’s an interesting exercise to imagine how many different paths your life might have taken, based on different choices at those decision points, and what would have been the result of each.  Of course, we shouldn't obsess on it, but sometimes it can be an amazing thing to consider.

In our lives there are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of decision points that determine what will happen next.  These are like forks in the road, each offering a different path with different people, different experiences and different outcomes.  Sometimes the decision points are big and obvious.  Other times they are not so clear but can still change us in profound ways.

Alternative realities?

Of course, the only path we know is the one we have actually followed.  Nothing else is real for us.  But what if each potential path is just as real as the one you actually follow?  What if every decision point creates a new path in some alternative reality?  And what if you could actually see all of those paths?  It might look like a huge tree with tens of main branches, hundreds of smaller branches, and thousands of even smaller branches, each representing a different path.  It boggles the mind.

In my story, let’s start with the two choices for college.  This immediately creates two possible paths, but then each of those is divided by subsequent decision points into other possible paths, and all of those are further divided… and so on, and so on.  In all, there can be thousands and thousands of different paths for us. 

When we have problems in life, when we become disappointed about choices we've made, it is quite natural to imagine how some alternative path would have been better.  But we can’t know for sure.  Perhaps the alternative would actually have been worse.  In some cases we clearly make poor choices, and what happens is just the natural result of having made a bad decision.

But sometimes the decision itself might not be so bad; it’s the attitude we adopt as we travel this new path that might cause it to be less than we had hoped.  Often we sabotage even our most enlightened choices.  In such a case, perhaps no choice would yield a positive result; our thoughts, and thus are behaviors, are already set to make it go bad.

So this begs a question: are there truly no bad choices, no mistakes?  Or is it only about what we do with the choices we make, and the paths we follow?  I think it is mostly this way; however, there clearly are some choices that are far worse than others.  The reasons we make these choices probably also reflect our attitudes, especially toward ourselves.

Different paths toward the same goal?

When we make a choice at some decision point, do we just randomly point ourselves toward some outcome, and if we make a different decision, do we aim ourselves in some other, equally random direction and toward and entirely different outcome?  Is it all just chance?  Or do we live our lives trying in some way to find our way toward some particular goal or goals conceived, perhaps, even before birth. 

Are there certain things we are meant to do, certain places we are meant to be, certain experiences we are meant to have, no matter what decisions we make along the way?  And are the most important people who appear in our lives somehow destined to be part of our lives no matter the choices we make?  Do we make certain choices, subconsciously, in order to bring us to these places, experiences and people?

For example, in the little story I used to illustrate this at the beginning, was I somehow “destined” to be in Colorado, or Japan?  Would I have found some way to experience Peru, no matter which choice I made when I was 17?  Was it inevitable that I would meet and perhaps fall in love with particular people, no matter what else happened?  Was it cosmically necessary that I should have exactly the children that I had?  And was it preordained that I would wind up in Ukraine one day?

People and places - profound connections

Often we feel such a profound connection with certain people and places that we can’t imagine how we could have NOT been destined to come to them at some point.  Colorado has always drawn me in such a way that I can’t conceive how I could have lived my life without ever being there.  But is this because I was inexorably drawn to that place?  Or do I feel that way only because I spent most of my adult life there?

The only other places that “spoke to me” in such a way were Ireland and, now that I think about it, Ukraine.  As I write this, I realize that I really need to return to Ireland to test this, to see if I might still feel that strong pull that I felt when I visited so long ago.  It would be interesting.

The connection with people is even more interesting.  There have been many people who have come and gone in my life, a handful who have been “significant,” and just a few who have touched me at the deepest level.  It seems that if my path had not been so unusual, these “deeper” people would not have had the opportunity to enter.  If had made some other choice in the past, I would never have put myself in the right position to cross paths with them. 

But if we were somehow destined to meet, no matter what, then even if I had made some other choice early in life, my subsequent choices would still, somehow, have brought me around to these people and them to me.  I do believe this is the case.  It might also be the case that a different path might have brought these people into my life at a different point in time, and perhaps under different circumstances.  But the fact that these people have had such importance in my life as I know it suggests that they simply had to be a part of my existence in some way.

How different might each of us be?

The people, places and experiences along our path help mold our personalities and create the persons we ultimately become.  In our childhood, we are taught much about who we should be and how we should live by parents, other family members, teachers, neighbors and friends.  Our view of the world is colored by the people we meet and the things that happen.  And all through our lives, these people and events add additional color and shading.  The person you are now is the "essence" you started with, molded and modified by all these external forces.

So if you follow a completely alternative path, wouldn't this mean that you would be a very different person?  Would one path encourage you to be a nice, caring person, while another would turn you into an asshole?  Are we more a product of our environment than of the soul that dwells within us? Most people seem to believe this is the case... that if Hitler, for example, had followed a different path, he would not have been the monster he became.  

But how can we know this?  Perhaps the goal your spirit sets out for, the lessons and experiences it desires, are what determine what kind of person you become, and the paths it takes are chosen in order to provide what it needs to develop that personality.

Sometimes I like to think I would have been a little wiser and nicer on a different path.  I look at my own shortcomings and think they could have been averted.  But overall, I would rather be the man I am than most of the alternatives I could think of, and I prefer to believe that on any path, I would still have formed the basic beliefs and values that I have now.

A Vehicle on the Road

People, places, experiences – for me it seems absolute that certain of these just had to be part of my life, not matter what choices I might have made through the years.  I can’t imagine it any other way, and I DO believe that there is a divine hand in it all.  I don’t believe that life is random – no way!

I believe we have a purpose, an aim, even before we are born.  And I believe our spirits work to take us along paths to realize our particular purposes.  But because the spirits is traveling along in a fallible human vehicle, and because the vehicle does much of its own driving (even if badly), the path can be quite circuitous.  But when the vehicle careens too far off course, spirit grabs the wheel and coaxes it back toward the goal.

Perhaps we don’t make it to every person, place or experience we set out for.  Maybe certain paths take us closer to some and further from others.  But I am confident that spirit ensures that we make it to the most important ones, no matter what our human mind selects along the way. 

Perhaps the difference between whether the human vehicle takes the best path to the spirit’s goal lies in the level of awareness the mind achieves about that goal – the extent to which it allows spirit to come in and guide the vehicle.  Meditation and quiet contemplation, time in nature, time away from limiting distractions (like the Internet), all allow the mind to open and expand, and for spirit to enter. 

Why think about this at all?

As I look back and read this, it makes sense to me, but I can understand how someone else might wonder what the heck I’ve been smoking.  Don’t worry, I don’t smoke anything.  Perhaps one might wonder why I’ve spent any time thinking about this at all, unless it’s all I have to do.

Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about choices lately because as we start to draw closer to the end of the year, I find myself facing the prospect of making another big decision: whether to go through the permit process and stay another year in Ukraine or to decide that I’ve had enough and need to do something else.  It is starting to weigh heavily on my mind.

Last year, it was a foregone conclusion that I would stay; I really didn’t have any other good plans, and my teaching work here was quite satisfying.  But this time I really don’t know.  I am feeling a stronger urge to leave than ever before, and I feel less attraction to stay.  And as I start to ponder the possible consequences of my decision, I have been finding myself thinking more about the actual results and consequences of past choices and about how different choices might have yielded different results.

I suppose it’s just an exercise I need to go through because I want very much to make the “right” choice, as if there was such a thing.  If nothing else, all this thought about different choices, different paths and different outcomes is just sort of fun and interesting.  But ultimately, I know I have to make it possible for spirit – my spirit, the essence of who I really am – to make the best choice clear. 

For some time, I have to stop trying to drive the vehicle myself and give the wheel to my Self, the real me on the inside.  If I do that, we’ll take a great ride together to a perfect destination.