“For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature, the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life seems full of all kinds of events that mark the time indelibly; that I know will soon be remembered by before and after. Some of them, like senior prom and high school graduation are so universal as to feel cliché, but that doesn’t change the truth of it. They are marking events. Winning my first investment is another one of those marking points that is not only filling up, but altering the time and practice of the work as the beginning of something new. I feel the need to slow it down and think it through. I am happy to see the impetuousness step aside, maybe it is my exhaustion level, but it also feels slightly more mature.
T.S. Eliot wrote: “Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage which we did not take, towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.” There are times in life when the doors we open make all the difference. At the very least, the time deserves respectful consideration and taking the time to investigate a range of alternatives. I am reminded of the maxim that many entrepreneurs and dreamers alike must gravitate towards: that there is no single right choice, that the right choice is in pursuing whichever path you have chosen with all your heart. The right choice is doing what you can to make any choice as right as it can be. I have long been aware that we often must make choices without all the necessary information.
“The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.” This reminder by Samuel Johnson is a good one, because it is true that when moving through these challenging life changes, the best way to move ahead is by trusting that you will be lead to the right people and circumstances for the highest good of everyone concerned.
