What is the right life path?

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Years ago, a friend of mine was appointed as a judge in the Colorado Court of Appeals. During her swearing-in remarks, she talked about the concept of paths. She said that while it seemed to her that many of her peers had specific goals that they were working toward, her story was different. She followed her heart and the path she took had several twists and turns without always having a clear endpoint. Yet, working with integrity and staying true to her values led to the great achievement of being a judge. It turned out that while she didn’t realize it before, everything she had done prior was a path towards this after all.

This resonated with me because one of my own biggest struggles has always been defining specific goals in my life. I tend to waffle and wander. My interpretation of her speech was that if we stay true to who we are, and continue to put one foot in front of the other even if we don’t quite know where we are going, sometimes our goals find us instead of the other way around.

Like all inspiration, I started to forget this helpful advice and lately began to get a bit down on myself for some of the decisions I made earlier in life, wishing that I had more of a clear focus. But a few weeks ago, I was reminded of my friend’s speech when my young nieces and nephews, in all their 10-year-old wisdom, gave me a good reminder that there is not one right answer on how to live our lives.

My husband and I took four of the kids to spend the afternoon at Dave & Busters. D&B is an arcade center for kids in which playing games wins you tickets that can be redeemed for prizes. As we were driving, they were chatting about their strategies. One suggested they should look at the prizes first and pick out what they wanted. This way, they knew exactly how many tickets were needed and could focus on getting that number. Another disagreed, saying they should just pick the most fun games and play those. One suggested they combine all their tickets so they could get a really big prize, and one seemed content to simply do their own thing without announcing an approach.

It struck me that at such a young age, we develop very different ideas on how to approach life. Some of us are great at being goal-oriented and able to work backward from what we are trying to achieve. Some people have the gift of staying in the moment and taking life as it comes without thinking much about the future. We know those who are motivated to work collaboratively for the greater good and those who like to work independently and see the value in being self-sufficient. Of course, there are infinite combinations and varieties of these takes, but it is safe to say that we all have different ideas on the “best” way to live.

I tend to think that the secret to happiness is to accept that there is no universal “best way” to approach life. Ayurveda tells us that we all have a unique disposition, or Prakriti, and living in alignment with our Prakriti is the key to both optimal health and finding our deepest sense of satisfaction. Everyone is valuable in their own way, and as a society, we benefit when everyone is using their strengths. So the first step is understanding your own Prakriti and confidently living your life with this in mind. The second step is realizing that your Prakriti is not the same as those around you. Instead of trying to get everyone to live and think the same way we do, we can start to value the differences of the people around us.

At the end of our enjoyable D&B afternoon, all the kids counted their tickets, and as can be predicted, the prize selection was a bit disappointing. They wandered around for a while and finally settled on a few trinkets. I’m fairly sure that most of the prizes are lost beneath a pile of toys already. While my friend is providing a great service and will be impacting the community significantly in her role for years to come, there will be a time when she retires, and her judgeship will be another step of her path behind her, as she decides what to do next.

So I suppose the lesson here is that it is necessary to take a path, but choose the one that resonates most with you. Your path may be zig-zag, focused, through the way less traveled, or one that was paved long ago. You may travel it alone, with companions, with a clear endpoint, or completely blindly. As long as it is YOUR path, you are doing the right thing, because any grand prize at the end is fleeting. It turns out, that the path itself was the prize (and your purpose) all along.

Happy searching everyone :)

Nina

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