Our Own Path

There’s no question that the people, places. and things we surround ourselves with influence who we become. They inspire us to who we want and do not want to become.

And these days the inspiration is endless. With our modern culture, we’re exposed to more things and more information than ever before. From tvs, to cable, to the vastness of the internet, there is access to information and influence from literally every part of the globe. And it’s all new. We are an experimental generation. None of this has ever been tried before.

With all that information, it’s easier now than ever to lose ourselves in the lives of everyone else. It’s not just easy, it’s what we’re taught to do. From the time we’re babies, TVs and ads blast us with what we should do and who we should become.

It’s easier than ever to be consumed by the world around us every minute of everyday. And who could blame us for that? If the culture’s who grew up before us had access to this much information, they probably would lose themselves too.

But from what I can tell, the best artists, the best communicators, the best leaders, etc. all have their own story. They started a certain way. They grew up in a certain place. They became something. They made changes to that thing they became, and they got where they are now. Every story is different.

Some of us, myself included, have gotten caught up in diagnosing our own lives, and our own direction, by studying these stories nonstop looking for answers. We’ve tried to diagnose our own life map by looking at everyone else’s. That’s an endless rabbit trail. That road takes us every which way, and at the end of that, it drops us off right where we started.

But we all have to find our own path. We find that path best when we are in tune with our own selves, not everyone else. We look at our own roads we’ve taken, not anybody else’s, and decide where we want to go and what story we want to write.