Choosing your own path.
It’s only when you look back that you see how much of the path you have travelled. The starting point is always blurry, but you have a vague recollection of when it started. My current path started back in 2008.
The background
Everyone I knew had placements sorted for their degree courses and I didn’t want to be stuck in Sheffield making my way through my final year without the people who helped make university that little bit special. There was a placement to go work and live in New York at a British themed pub. It was the New York part that grabbed me. My eyes had been firmly set on visitng America ever since I was a child. This was the perfect chance to go and learn about a culture I was fascinated with and heavily influenced by. The year experience was truly stellar. It most certainly taught me a lot about myself as well as introducing me to the world of craft beer.
Fast-forward to the present day and I’m head of sales and marketing for a company that imports craft beer from the west coast of America. It is so strange to think how I ended up here based on the fact I wanted to make sure I spent my last year of university with my friendship group.
The path continued
Waking up bleary eyed a couple of days ago and during the morning ritual of checking social media and Timehop I came across something I had posted on Facebook that amused me and also shook me a little. It simply stated my fear of ‘waking up when I’m 40 and realising I’ve been doing the same thing day in, day out for the last God knows how many years. That’s what scares me’. It still terrified me to this day.
Just because we are on a path does not mean we need to stick to it. Sometimes you may stray far from the path but return with gusto and push on ahead. Some people are happen to plod along on the path that is set out in front of them. To leave the path you are on takes a lot of guts, blind faith, a touch of arrogance to know you’ll be fine no matter what and heaps of positivity. Some people strive when they venture into the inknown. I admire this people greatly. There has been a few times where I have done this and it really does push you as a person and triggers the sink or swim mentality. I guess the best way to succeed when in ‘sink or swim’ mode is to take away all safety nets, meaning failure is not an option.
Recently I have found myself in the middle of spaghetti junction. Not so much a crossroads but an absolute clusterfuck of many different paths suddenly laid out for me. It’s not a case of which one is better or worse. It’s a case of which one is right for me at this moment.
The reason I have written such a selfish, narrow-minded blog post is just to get this out there. I will no doubt follow this back up in a few months and re-evaluate what I have learned since writing this.
Thanks for reading,
Andy
