The Road Less Traveled
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. —Robert Frost
As we enter the second half of our lives, typically around ages 40-50, we are faced with a range of options. It's not as simple as choosing between two roads.
One option is the "Midlife Crisis" road, where we cling desperately to the person we used to be or the person we always wished we could be. This is a treacherous path, filled with twists and turns and an unclear destination.
Another option is the "Keeping Things the Same" road. We may believe that our best years are behind us, that life is reasonably good, and that we should maintain the status quo as we coast through the rest of our days. This is a straightforward, flat road with predictable stops along the way.
A third option is the "Over the Hill" road, where we accept the notion that life is a slow decline after age 40. We resign ourselves to this fate and try to make the best of it. This is a downhill road where virtually everything deteriorates over time.
The fourth option is the "New Beginnings" road, where we see a new chapter of our lives unfolding with opportunities for creativity, learning, and finding new meaning and purpose.
Robert Frost once faced a dilemma: choosing the road that everyone else had traveled or taking a risk by choosing the less-traveled path. But we have many choices available to us. If we don't make a choice, life will choose for us, often leading us down one of the default roads: Midlife Crisis Road, Keeping Things the Same Road, or the Over the Hill Road.
If we choose the New Beginnings Road, however, we enter what I like to call the Third Half of Life. I know that's not mathematically correct, but the idea is to create a new life on top of the default life that pulls us toward the well-trodden path. This is a time to get to know ourselves, to understand why we're here, what's truly important in our lives, and what we cannot compromise on. Once we have this figured out, everything else seems to fall into place.
When you reach that 40-50 mark, you're not over the hill just yet. There are still a lot of mountains left to climb. So take the road less traveled, and see where it leads.