Pathwalking 32
How do you get back to the path if you have begun to backtrack, and why is that important?
As mentioned previously, if you have chosen to walk your path, you have chosen to accept control over change. You are choosing how you will live your life, and as such how you make changes. Pathwalking is active, and proactive. Backtracking is reacting, and thus opposite.
The difficulties you have encountered along the path have made you backtrack. You have leaped from the path to a point back in time. Maybe you have returned to a prior employment situation, a prior relationship, or a place you left behind. But you have backtracked, and yet still desire to walk your path.
Reality can be a harsh mistress here. We all have to live somewhere; as social animals we all need to associate with people in various ways. Most of us, once we have become adults, have accrued debts and expenses, and as such need jobs to pay these. While Pathwalking could easily take you away from the norm when it comes to these things, we still have to live in the “Real World”.
Backtracking may be associated with coping with the need to live in this world. The bills have to be paid, very few people can just disconnect and live as a guru on a mountain top or on a beach in the tropics. Real world concerns could make you backtrack, and take you from the path you were walking.
The first thing to acknowledge is that you have begun to backtrack. This can either be a total game changer, or a minor setback. That, like everything else in Pathwalking, depends on you.
How far have you backtracked? Does it take you completely off your path, or just divert you? How far back have you leaped? Can you leap forward, walk on ahead…or is this a point where you need to choose another path entirely?
Pathwalking goes beyond choosing your own path, and walking it. It is a far broader concept than that…and I think this is the time to explore that.
See, the idea for ME is that I want to walk my own path. MY path, as I see it, is to write for a living – whether this, fiction, fantasy, or business writing of some sort – I want to write. I am a thinker, and I am a writer.
I want to do what I want to do to find my own happiness, and to be the person I want to be, to live the life I want to live.
This is NOT how Pathwalking is going to necessarily work for anyone else. In part because our paths are ALL separate, and unique. And in part because the deeper reason to walk the path can vary so wildly.
It comes down to awareness. While for me it is insufficient to be aware of the path I want to take, but not take it…for some, that may be enough.
I concede that it may be enough to be aware of who you are, and what you want, to be Pathwalking.
The path takes a lot of different forms. Some are physical, some are intellectual, some are spiritual, some are emotional, and some are a mix of all or part of these. But the underlying truth of the concept is awareness. Knowing yourself, knowing your thoughts and emotions.
Society wants us to march to the beat of this drum or that, to “go” this way or that way, and the outside influences are easy to heed. But we all have our own will, our own awareness, and if we just acknowledge and work with that, I think that could make the world a better place for everyone.
I am not talking about selfishness…I am talking about self-awareness. Pathwalking is choice, sometimes great, sometimes small, but action versus reaction, or inaction. Pathwalking is looking at your life, your thoughts and desires, and making choices for yourself. To even seek out a path, you need to be aware.
How do you get back to the path if you have begun to backtrack, and why is that important? You make choices. You analyze where you are, how you have gotten there, and where you want to be, and you choose. Why is it important? Because too many people are NOT aware, and do not make choices for themselves…and I think this is why society is riddled with misunderstanding, inequality and intolerance.
I believe that if more people were aware they can choose for themselves, and made more choices on their own, rather than demanding laws and rules and societal expectations to decide for them, this world would be happier, healthier, and better for us all.
Idealistic? Perhaps. But if you have been following along on this Pathwalking journey with me up to now, I think you can see this point as well. Do these posts speak to you? Do they voice ideas and thoughts you share, even if you don’t always agree with them? Doesn’t making your own choices make you more content, even happier? If you can answer yes to any or all of these, then I think you are likely ALSO working on walking your own path.
Doesn’t making your own choices feel good?
This is the thirty-second 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. Thank you for joining me.
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