Choosing the path…

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” Sir Winston Churchill

It has come time for me to ascend to the next level of my journey and re-discover the joy and glory of the climb along my path once again. Yesterday I intentionally stepped off one path and gently closed the gate behind me on my way out. Today is the start of the next phase of my life adventure, and I’m eager and excited for it to unfold and the next path upon which to walk become clear.

The pictures you see in this post are ones I’ve taken just this year and they’re an apt metaphor for where I’m at right now: multiple paths, all different, all beautiful and each seductively appealing in their own way. As an amateur photographer, I enjoy capturing things that appeal to me. Photos like these, in whose essence I see my sense of adventure and delight, are ones that also highlight and showcase my joy in serendipitous discovery. Many of my other photographs are of doors not yet open, windows that are closed for now, and paths where the end can’t yet be seen nor give the viewer any sense of what is around the corner or over the hill.

Questions abound from former colleagues, friends and family. “What are you going to do?” Everyone wants specifics which I’m not yet prepared to give. There are multiple paths from which I can choose but I’m going to do something atypical and unprecedented for me: be open to adventure, surprise and delight and take joy in the serendipitous discovery that will come. In the words of a buddy of mine, “So Borsch…you’re gonna take a few weeks off?” Yeah…but that seems to trivialize what my intention is this time around. I intend to be completely open to possibility like never before and choose differently.

This story in five chapters is illustrative of where I’ve been with past choices and what I intend to do now:

Chapter 1: I walk down a path. There is a huge, deep hole in the middle of it and I fall in. It takes me a *very* long time to climb out.

Chapter 2: I walk down that same path. A bit preoccupied yet still knowing the hole is there, I fall in again! Though not as long as the first time, it still takes me awhile to climb out.

Chapter 3: I walk down the same path. I see the hole; I know it’s there; I fall in anyway. I climb right out.

Chapter 4: I again walk down the same path. I see the hole, I know it’s there; I walk around it.

Chapter 5: I walk down a different path.

How often do we do the same thing over-and-over again expecting a different result? I know you’ve heard that as many times as I have (and it’s one of “those fundamental truths”), but we each have to learn it ourselves, overcome whatever fears are holding us back, and walk down our own different path. A path that aligns with our talents, skills, passions and interests.

Stay tuned…