Imagine one day you decide to take a different way home from work than you usually do. You decide to take a new path that you’ve never taken before. It’s late at night, and you’re unfamiliar with where you are. Your car runs out of gas, your cell phone battery is dead, and you left your cell phone charger at home. What do you do? Do you take a chance and walk to the nearest gas station? Do you stop a passerby on the street to see if they can assist? Do you stay in your car until morning?
Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, everything boils down to survival. Most people work at their jobs and would gladly quit if they could, but they don’t have anywhere else to go to make money. We tolerate our family and friends, even the really nasty ones sometimes, because we want to belong and we don’t want to be singled out or ostracized. Some people take safe chances when a desirable outcome is likely, and sometimes they take chances because they feel they need to in order to survive.
Maybe my situation isn’t that dire, but over the past few years, I felt like I needed to make some moves for my own mental and emotional survival. I don’t know how things are going to turn out. I started from scratch, but I’m trying to make the best of what I know and what has worked for me so far. Survival and the unknown path forces people to evolve. I once was a shy, in my shell, and unknowingly in my own way person. Things had to get so sad for me to change my way of thinking. And even though I don’t know how any of this is going to turn out, I’m thankful that I’ve come this far.
I don’t want to take this journey for granted, and I don’t want to downplay the changes I’ve undergone to get to this point. Sometimes, life forces us to step out on faith and take a leap even when we think we’re not ready because, I believe, it’s pushing us to our fullest potential. If you keep going down the same path, nothing new will come. Once you’ve walked the same path so many times, you tend to think that’s all there is, and that’s a dismal point of view. At least that’s how it was in my case. But I guess, before you leave the well-known path, it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve gotten everything you could from it.
This is why I’m trying my hand at writing and at poker. I had to try something different for my own sanity. I like the challenge myself when it comes to things I enjoy, but I don’t know where this path will lead. I’m grateful for the opportunity to go for it and see what happens. Worst-case scenario, I won’t be able to write and play poker in order to support myself financially, but I’m still happy that I’m doing it. Writing and playing poker are my unknown paths.
Going back to the scenario at the beginning. I don’t know what I would do in that situation. Most likely, I would probably stay in the car until morning. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to pee or anything. The point I was trying to make is that sometimes in life we take unexpected turns that lead us down unknown paths. Who knows what can happen? Maybe I’d run into an old friend on that path, or maybe I’d meet the love of my life on that path, or maybe I’d find a $100 bill if I decided to get out of the car. Life is funny that way.