Something I wrote in my first post got me thinking about making choices and their subsequent consequences. I've been consumed for the past 2 weeks with whether I made the right decision to quit my job. Is it the right thing to do? Should I wait a little longer? Will I regret it? Will I ever find another job? On and on... the second-guessing keeps me awake at night. When I made the decision to quit, there was an initial sense of relief. I was relieved that I finally made a decision. What I have come to realize, though, is that I'm worried about the consequence of my choice. I keep asking myself, "Where will I end up as a result of this choice?"
For so long, I have been traveling on a path where I've known (or at least thought I've known) the destination. Along my path, I've obviously been faced with many different choices, but every choice I've made has been with an ultimate destination in mind. For example, I never really made a conscious decision to attend college. The only choice I made was whether to attend U of M or Notre Dame. The ultimate destination (college) did not change when I picked one over the other.
As I've mentioned, I struggled with whether to quit my job or not for the better part of 3 years. I finally realized that it's been hard for me to make a decision because I am now at my life's proverbial "fork in the road." This is a new experience for me. In the past, I've always known where I was going, what I wanted to accomplish, and what the end result would (or should) be. For the first time, I have made a choice which will leave me following the "unknown" path. I put off making the decision for 3 years because, for me, continuing on the "work path" was the easy way. It was the known way. It was the expected way. It was also the financially comfortable way.
Fork in the road or dead end?
It pains me to write the following, but this is my journal, and if I can't be honest with myself here, where can I be honest? So here goes, right now, my "fork in the road" feels more like a "dead end," and I'm not sure exactly how all the choices I've made in the past (choices that I've always thought were "good" choices) have brought me here. At this moment in time, I sort of feel like a failure. It's hard to put into words why I "sort of " feel like a failure. Maybe I will explore this topic in a future entry. I know that I am not really a failure, but I have found myself second-guessing almost all of my previous life-choices. There's no way to know whether I'd still end up at this juncture regardless of all my previous choices. Perhaps I was always destined to end up here. Right now, I don't know whether this is a short deviation from my intended path or whether this truly is a new path with new choices leading to a new ultimate destination.
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