Pathwalking 217
Today has not gone as planned.
It has not gone badly, just not as I intended for it to go.
What do you do when you have a plan or an intent for your day, or your week, or your year and it gets derailed?
How can you still choose your path when you are clearly off of it?
I have said more than once that sometimes the diversions on your path are actually where you need to go. Sometimes these twists and turns and forks in the road redirect you somewhere better than you intended.
Of course, conversely, sometimes they lead you somewhere you really DON’T want to be – but that doesn’t mean that you are not supposed to be there.
How am I still walking on my path when I am somewhere I don’t want to be?
This is one of the more challenging aspects of Pathwalking. There are a number of things in your life that you can control. However, there ARE numerous things over which you can exert no control at all.
If you planned a grand hiking expedition and there is a hurricane, or you suffer an unexpected injury and have to utterly change your plans, or the person you were working with completely flakes out on you, this can force you to change your path, as you have no control over these things.
Due to circumstances beyond your control your path has to change. A lot of the time this is where people lose their desire to walk a path of their own choosing. You think, to hell with that, it didn’t get me anywhere – or – that was a total failure – or, worst of all – see? I have no control over my destiny what-so-ever!
I know how frustrating this can be. I have had the plan in place because I thought the path I was on was right and true…and then it was gone. Not through any direct action on my part, but due to the unpredictability of other people and events.
What is the point if you are still a victim of circumstance?
That right there is the point. Victim. Are you a victim, or do you instead choose to find a new opportunity? Just because things have not gone according to plan does not mean that you have failed, or that you are a victim – unless you choose to be.
Too many people allow themselves to be victims in this life. They blame this that or the other thing for their circumstances and they don’t choose for themselves but to suffer. People accept things that they actually could change, but because in the moment it seems bad or because of long-term after-effects they believe they are powerless.
We all have bad days, we all have instances where things go horridly wrong. I certainly did not choose when I was crossing that street over fifteen years ago to be hit by a car. I did not choose to spend that time I spent bound to a wheelchair for transport. I didn’t choose to experience all that pain.
What I DID choose at that time was to not be a victim. I chose to fight. I chose to struggle and persevere to speed my recovery and return my life to my control. I chose not to curl up in a ball and wait for death, I chose not to just let things happen as they may, I chose to push, to fight, to press and to accept nothing less than total success.
Today may not have gone as I’d planned for it to go. That’s why this is being put out as late as it is. However, rather than lament this I am working with it, and adjusting accordingly.
I can’t control the weather. I cannot control other people and their needs and expectations and emotions and actions. I cannot control anything but what I am thinking, how I am feeling and what I am doing. I can only control these things about my life, but in knowing this I can choose if the path that I was on is no more what I am to do next.
This is where it is so vastly important to be mindful of the here and now. Awareness of where you are at is how you can adjust when where you want to be changes, or when something you have no control over shifts matters in a way you’d prefer it didn’t. Because you are awake and aware of your immediate circumstances you can change with more ease than if you are living in the past or only for the future.
The journey is often of more important than the end result because so many things beyond our control can effect it. People, places and things can greatly change our paths in ways we didn’t expect. The dream job offer in paradise, the unexpected love interest, the failed relationship, the surprise inheritance you didn’t count on can massively alter your plans and also change your expectations and circumstances.
When your path does not go as you would want it to, be aware of whether you allow yourself to be victimized by that, or to choose to move on and make different choices. Because you have control over how you feel, and how you think and act based on your feelings, you always have options, and new paths before you.
Do you allow circumstance to victimize you when what you’ve planned doesn’t work out?
GOAL LOG – Week 7:
Diet: Tracking what I am eating daily. Starting to improve on my choices.
Exercise: Fencing happened, got to the gym twice and I took a good long walk one day as well.
Writing: Six days of writing. Managed to surpass my goal.
Progress happens!
This is the two-hundred seventeenth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.
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