Pathwalking 151
Do you take the easy path, or do you challenge yourself?
This is an interesting question because I think a lot of people misinterpret the phrase “challenge yourself”. People sometimes want to do a difficult and complex thing because it is challenging, not because they actually have the desire to do it.
How do you define challenging yourself?
This idea is when you have something you are passionate about, but it may be a new or different approach, or it may be a wholly new thing for you to try. It might be something you have never done before, but you are going to work at it anyhow because it interests you.
Take, for example, National Novel Writer’s Month. Every November there is a challenge to write 50,000 words. You have 30 days, make the words happen! As a writer there is a challenge, because this is a lot of words to parse out on a daily basis. Also, this is about quantity, not quality.
I have over the years completed this challenge several times. For me, an added challenge of this has been either working in a genre I do not normally write, or choosing a perspective that differs from my usual. Most of my work is Sci Fi or Fantasy, but I have written a humorous narrative/memoir and a technothriller. Most of my fiction is written in third person, but for NaNo I have chosen to write in first person.
These are challenges within the framework of something I love. I write a lot of different things in a lot of different situations, and I have used this opportunity to try something unusual.
What about a challenge in something you have never done before? I’ve tried my hand at this as well. Not so long ago I tried a first attempt at some leather tooling. I created something using a medium I have never used before, and I tried something new.
The reason I bring this up is because when you choose your paths, sometimes the choices before you are easy and sometimes challenging. There are certainly times to choose the former over the latter, but I would suggest it is always wise to really examine what that choice will mean.
Why is this important?
One of the reasons to choose your own destiny and to walk your own path is because you want to experience the abundance and fullness of life. There are so many possibilities, so many things to see and do and learn. When you get caught up in the daily routines and you let life choose for you, it is easy to lose sight of this. Worse, it is easy to fall into the trap that you think you’ve chosen your path, when you have not.
This is why it is vitally important to constantly be asking yourself questions. How do I feel? What am I doing? Where am I going? What do I want from this path? When you stop asking questions it is surprisingly easy to lose sight of the path, and to then fall off of it.
The other problem that may crop up is this. Paths shift. They fork. They go off in completely different directions than we thought. Sometimes the path we have become comfortable with is not actually the choice we should be making anymore, and the time has come to choose anew.
One note of caution here. When and if you find yourself in this situation, don’t waste your time getting upset or depressed or otherwise distraught. As I have said rather frequently, the journey is easily as important, if not more so, than the goal at the end. Berating yourself, getting upset because of a lost path or any other such negative reaction will stall you further. Let it go. Move on.
Some paths are easy. They are obvious, they are subtle, and they are laid out like a ten lane highway you have all to yourself. There is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, however, the lack of challenge is a sign that perhaps this path you are on is not right for you, and the time has come to choose another.
Another note of caution here. Virtually nothing is impossible. However, and this is important, you have to REALLY, TRULY want what you want. I mentioned this before in Pathwalking 148, when I explored the necessary elements that go into manifestation. If you are challenging yourself with your path, be certain that you think about it, feel it, and take action to make it happen.
Some days the challenging path with be easy and the easy path will be challenging. That’s just the way the universe works.
Sometimes the right choice is the easy path, sometimes it’s the challenging one. Either way, choose wisely. You are more powerful than you know, and you are more capable than you realize. Your destiny can be your own, when you make choices to control it.
Are you walking an easy or a challenging path?
This is the one-hundred fifty first entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share. Thank you for joining me.
The first fifty-two weeks (Year One) of installments of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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