Paths

"Follow your own path and let people talk" - Dante

If I had a life-banner that waved above my head, this would be on it. It's what I aspire to - but it's never as easy as it sounds, is it?

Expectations, the "way the world is" crowd out the freedom to just be who we are and do what we want/need to. And yet lately I've started trying to be true to myself. To not bend over backwards where conformation is expected, but to rather do what I feel is right for me. Conforming to tightly-regulated expectations have often left me feeling frustrated and powerless. Being true to me is producing the opposite effect! Yet I'm going at it slowly, surreptitiously...

I still have this dream of packing up the kid in a Land Rover (or Toyota 4x4, as they might be a bit more reliable at times), selling all my earthly possessions and travelling with a camera and laptop - exploring and writing and taking photos, and making a living from it! Imagine the education my son would get travelling the world! Perhaps not your "average" education, but who really wants to sit in a stuffy school wearing uncomfortable clothing, with your butt on a hard chair all day, getting berated by teachers for things you didn't do - and then go home exhausted? There's a niggling thought that he'd be "disadvantaged" by such an experience - who DOESN'T want to see a high school certificate these days for further study, work, whatever? But then again - he'd be learning things his classmates never would. He'd be out there LIVING while he learnt, and discovering so much more than textbooks can tell. And I know a couple of folk who have gone far on those kind of upbringings.

(A lesser dream is to save like crazy and spend all our holidays in Egypt, the Amazon, the Himalayas... but that's a cop-out.)

Try mention this kind of wish, and watch the reactions - "you can't do that!", "what about your future?", "it's too dangerous", "it would never work", "you've got to think about your son", "how would you make money?". Wonder how many of those reactions stem from an underlying jealousy that I'd even consider chucking in a conventional life and doing something daring?

And I wonder how much I've been influenced by other's talk? What is REALLY stopping me from actually doing it? Not a lot - except fear. And a list of "but first I have to..." (insert things like "learn car maintenance", "actually BUY a 4x4 and a laptop", "equipment, research" etc...!)

I had similar feelings of fear when I considered stepping out of church indefinitely. It's a big, dark world out there - and nothing was certain. Who knows what could happen? But it's been a GOOD thing, and in spite of the talk it's generated from "concerned citizens" I've continued along this path I've chosen to follow. Mostly because I believe it's where God wants me to go. Wish I could say the same about the pack-up-and-go plan... perhaps I should try find a prophet?

I've been scared to NOT conform too. It's never said, but often implied that daring to be different may lead to your no longer working here - and everyone knows how scarce employment is. But I'm still here - and I'm no longer conforming. So what's the worst that can happen?

Ah - that phrase, "the worst that can happen". Perhaps that's my problem. I go over all the possibilities before I take a path, and very often it's the worst-case scenario that turns me back from persuing it. But things hardly ever end up as bad as that, do they? Most times they turn out better than you could have hoped for.

So here I sit, considering the future and the paths that spread before me. The LIMITLESS paths, if I choose to let go of materialism and secure ruts and conforming to what's expected of me. The possibilities are endless! The imagination runs wild!

And I really CAN do it, if I can just screw up the courage to do so. Wouldn't it be the coolest thing to just follow a path and let people talk?