The Okay Path
There's this path we're all on.
You go through the steps, you do the next thing that's expected, you fulfill requirements and obligations and expectations.
Everyone is fine with it—in fact, they're only fine with it, so if you stray from this path, things become not-okay. Not okay for them, which means not okay for you.
Why is my straying from the expectations of the people around me not okay with them and not okay with me?
Because they love me. They want me to be okay. And leaving the path that fulfills requirements and obligations and expectations is risky. Could be deadly. They love me, so they want me on the path.
And I love them. So I stay on the path. Partially out of love and partially because of fear. I don't want to be alone.
So stay on the path. That's how you stay okay. That's how you can belong.
The Okay Path.
But every day, every step, there's this little thing that hurts. Just slightly. Not enough to throw things off, but enough that over years and decades it becomes noticeable.
Something about this path is not right for me.
Shh. Don't let them hear. Are you kidding? Are you naive? Or worse, are you selfish? Do you want to be alone?
This is not okay. Get back on that path. Fulfill your obligations. Meet expectations.
Right. Sorry. I'm probably just tired. Maybe I just need a vacation. A refresh. Or maybe I need a drink. Or a hobby. Or an obsession. You know what works? A good dose of relational drama...
There are ten thousand forces all pushing you back in line. Not one of them is pushing you off the Okay Path.
And it's not just your friends. They love you. They're just looking out for you. So they keep you on the path. So do your enemies. Self-doubt, fear, worries about poverty, sickness, abandonment, death...
Everybody is bent on keeping you on this path.
Except for that one little thing that hurts, slightly but increasingly over the years.
How many years does it take before the pain of ignoring the call to live my own life, to take my own steps, to use my own voice overtakes the pain of the fear of what happens when we leave the Okay Path?
Once in a while something happens that is otherworldly. Often it's in the form of loss, but not always. Whatever it is, it's a life-event that's never happened to us or anyone we know. It takes everything we thought we knew and throws it up in the air. Nothing is certain. That's a big portion of the loss and the pain of the thing, whatever it is. We don't just lose the thing; we lose our overall sense of certainty about things. And from this perspective, while it lasts, the path—any path—looks completely made-up. It is made up, the perspective from this space would say.
Once in a while something happens, and the path is just gone. Not only is it gone, but it is one hundred percent clear that it was never there to begin with.
From this new perspective, nothing makes sense that used to make sense. And at the same time everything makes perfect sense. We know what to do, because we know who we are.
We know who we are the moment we step off the path we were on.
The Okay Path is not real. It's a continuation of a story that has been passed down, edited and passed down again, from person to person, from generation to generation. Regardless of the quality or the validity of it, it's not real. And more importantly it's not yours.
How do I know this? Because I've been knocked off the path by something otherworldly. I've spent enough time off the path to see it.
The Okay Path is not yours because it doesn't exist.
No path exists.
That's the terrifying, liberating truth that has been knocking on the door for years, decades, generations.
There is no path. And while that feels like the scariest possibility in the world to someone who has spent a lifetime believing that staying on the path keeps them okay, it's the best news in the world for a path-maker. And that is what you are.