We all play the “what if” game. What if we had gone to a different school. What if we had taken that job or turned down another. What if we had turned left instead of right.
I believe that it’s human nature to imagine life differently than what it is. To speculate how our life would be had we taken another path. Imagination is a good thing. It can spur change, make us reach for something we might not otherwise have tried.
When writing about yourself, your story is just that . . . your story. You script your life to meet whatever end you need. You can neglect the bad, highlight the awesome, and accentuate the funny.
In other words, you can be perfect . . . at least on paper.
Or you attempt to do the above but fail . . . sometimes spectacularly so (and sometimes crash and burn amidst the bad grammar).
So I’ve been writing (slowly) about my journey from confused M.B.A. grad to corporate worker who was in a rut looking at thirty. Then I left you hanging. For like a month. Or more.
Then this week, the Facebook timeline reminded me that it was 10 years ago this month that I changed the path I was on. And when I saw that, I sat back in my chair. Wow. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I started down a new path. And so of course, that spurred me to finish this story. Continue reading “How I Ended Up Here (Or Finding My Path), Part 3”
Last week I told part 1 of my journey. What I didn’t write was that I had already started down a path. A path I would eventually diverge from, which would lead me to where I am now. But at this point in the story, I am in my mid-twenties. I just finished the M.B.A. program and began walking down a path that
I started writing about my journey a few days ago. I ended it at the point when I had just finished my graduate studies and had started down a path in my mid-twenties with a new M.B.A. in hand. In the narrative, I also shared a side note about one of my college mentors who had given me a bookmark with a quote on it.
Life is a journey, not a destination. It’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason—because it’s true. For some of us, the journey just happens to take more turns, with occasional switchbacks, u-turns, or backtracking after reaching a dead-ends. My journey has sometimes gone in a spiral, or at least seems to.
Sometimes the journey isn’t a straight line. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense.
Then again, maybe I’m taking the journey metaphor a bit too far.
Anyway, now that I am firmly in my mid-life (whether or not I like or admit it), I am constantly amazed how time has flown by because it seems just yesterday I was getting ready to graduate college. Really, weren’t we *just* getting ready for the millennium? But as I reflect over the past couple decades, I thought I might share with you how I ended up where I am.
Unlike some, my journey is not a tragic one. My tale is not filled with terrible sorrow or great misfortune. It is filled with options, choices, and changes. But I’m not going to spoil the end of the story by telling you where “here” is. At least not yet. To tell any tale, one must begin at the beginning. Continue reading “How I Ended Up Here (or Sometimes the Journey Isn’t a Straight Line), Part 1”
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