Paralysing Plethora of Paths

We all have paths that lie in front of us. Of course, there are paths that don’t lie in front of us too. There is no single person alive that has all the possibilities in the world in front of them. Due to circumstances and genetics, body and psyche, and all sorts of other things…our paths have already been whittled down.

This is a good thing, and a useful thing, for the full gamut of possibilities would simply paralyse every single one of us. We wouldn’t be able to decide what to do. Some people fantasise about winning the lottery, as if, having lots of money, would bring the equivalent amount of possibility. Yet, the money and the possibilities don’t make it any easier to start a journey along a path.

In fact, I reckon, that the more possibilities we have, the more unhappy we become. One of the things humans deal with the worst in life is indecision. It seems that having a plethora of options is not congenial to the human temperament.

Some people genuinely don’t have clue what they want, and no sense of direction as to where to go, and what road to head out on. For them, attempting to choose might feel incredibly daunting, and induce the paralysis experienced by those who have too many options. These mapless ones have to make do with winging it, venturing down unknown paths. At best, these sojourners can learn to be pragmatic, willing to change and reassess at any given moment. For them, the road can be neither good nor bad, just preferable or not.

However, some of us have already begun on our journeys toward our satisfaction. We know all too well the path that lies in front of us; yet, we get scared from time to time. The further up the path we travel, the more scared we get, even though this is the journey we wanted and we chose. We falter. We stumble. We hanker after that place that lies behind us, as terrible as it is…that place where there is an abundance of possibility. We fantasise about a return to that no-man’s land where we have not chosen anything. We want to return to the crossroads.

When we start journeying toward our satisfaction, we often have to confront the dew of our dreams. When we have lived in the no-man’s land between the fantasy and the fear…the journey that will teach us about our capabilities and our limitations, threatens to disillusion us. This is why, even as we journey along paths we have very-much chosen, we may desire to return to the crossroads. We would often, rather keep our fantasies and dreams, as just that. We may be afraid that the actuality of the thing we longed for, might actually just be ordinary…just a different kind of ordinary. Not amazing…but a rich kind of ordinary.

But, maybe that is the thing we are most afraid of finding, at the end of the road.