A Fork in the Road

You will never know exactly where each path will take you, you just have to pick one, and keep moving forward.

     Are we fortune tellers? Can we control our futures? Do we know where our lives will end up? Of course not. No one can say for certain what’s going to happen, be it tomorrow or in twenty years time. The decisions you make today will definitely have an effect on your future, but you can never know exactly what that will be. You might be able to take a guess but you can never know for sure.

      So when you reach a fork in the road, when you have a choice to make, of course you’re going to weigh up your choices and consider where each will take you. But they could have entirely unexpected outcomes, and take you in a totally different direction than you thought they would. So we cannot stop. We cannot allow those moments of choice to linger on, to spend forever debating the alternatives and their possible outcomes, to wind up stuck in limbo.

     We have to move forwards. We have to make our choices, for whatever reasons we think are best in that moment, and then deal with the consequences, whether they are the ones we expected or not. You might regret a choice, you might wish you had taken the other path. But we can’t go backwards and we can’t stay still. We can only carry on.

     Making choices is never easy, and we all have our own ways of doing it. Maybe you decide alone or maybe you talk it through with confidantes. Maybe you make lists of pros and cons or maybe you go with your gut. Maybe you decide instantly or maybe you spend time mulling it over. However you do it, that’s ok. Do what’s right for you. Take your time, consider your options, talk it through… but then decide.

     There will rarely be a right or wrong answer. There will only be what is right for you. There will rarely be a clear path with an end in sight. There will only be a path that draws you to it. And there will never be complete certainty or assurance. There will only be going forwards, and seeing what adventure awaits you.

     Something that seems like a mistake could be the best thing you ever do. Something that seems like the ‘right’ or ‘expected’ path could turn out to be disastrous. We’ll never know what the future holds. So we just have to face it head on. Be bold, be brave, don’t look back, don’t have regrets, follow your instincts, make your choices, and keep moving forward.