My worst critic is myself. I can really make myself feel miserable. As if I’m never going to accomplish things in life. As if I’m forever going to be stuck at a job. Work until 75 (to finance the retirement system we are going to be forced to work to a much older age than today). Retire and then die 3 years later.
Spending your hard earned money on buying things. Things that you really don’t need. For a brief moment it feels great that you bought that new dress. A few days later it hangs in the wardrobe along with the other countless dresses. Nope, it didn’t make you happier. But surely the next one will. So you buy another one. And another one. Holding on to that futile hope that the next one will be different. The next time around will be different.
And the endless competing with your peers. The endless renovating your house project that swallows money faster than you can make them. So you take a loan. Then you take another loan. Then another to be able to handle the first two loans. Slippery slope. You are bound to trip and fall. If you’re lucky you simply glide all the way down to the bottom of the valley. If not so lucky, the rocks on the way down will crush you. The sad truth is that they most often do.
And the holidays. Always only longing for those precious days of holiday. The expectations on those days being enormous. How much fun we are going to have on that trip to sunny Spain. The bracelet around your wrist to show that you are an all-inclusive. Spending endless hours at a pool that looks the same regardless of where in the world. Never stepping out of the comfort zone of the hotel complex. Never seeing the real life of the people outside.
I am trying to get away from all this. I don’t want to take the traffic jammed highway. I want to find the little, windy gravel road where only a few are traveling. And when they pass each other by, they stop to say hello. They truly see the other person. I see you. You are not invisible. You are someone worth seeing.
It’s not easy to take the road less traveled. Most days you are alone on the road. The uncertainty starts to creep closer. Am I lost? Will I ever find the right way? The good news is that today the less traveled road is easier to navigate. Independent of where you live in the world, as long as you have an internet connection, you can find those beacons of light that illuminate the path in front of you. That guide you along the way to choosing yourself. That inspires you to take yet another step even though it feels as if the hill is much too steep. That it is, in fact, a mountain. But also mountains can be climbed as long as you don’t do it alone.
Photo by Michael Shannon on Unsplash
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