Choosing Paths That Feed Our Souls

The other day, someone sent this message to me:

"Just yesterday, I gave notice at my second job, which is a bit scary financially, so that I can finally have time to find my way towards a more connected and meaningful life."

Here's the thing about that message. For a long time, I think, this person knew leaving that second job was the right choice.

Matthew McConaughey talks a lot about making choices that fill our souls. He says that not often enough do we stop and pause and wonder what kind of impact a choice we're making for financial reasons will have on our souls next week or next month or next year.

I think finances - and other decision-making pressures in life - get us trapped on these paths that leave us feeling like we're on one of those people-mover belts you get on at the airport. You stand there - holding your luggage and all your belongings - and you exit when and where the people mover ultimately moves you to.

How many of us are in people mover jobs?
People mover relationships?
People mover battles with our health and wellness?

How many of us are in situations we are waiting out, hoping for magic, instead of performing our own magic? The magic that comes with making a hard choice we know will ultimately feed our souls.

If the right choice for feeding a soul is quitting that second job - well that choice gets no easier ten years down the road. You've simply missed out on ten years of soul food while riding the job people-mover.

Our lives aren't people movers. They are paths. And if the path you're on isn't feeding your soul, hike back out and take a new one. Or, cut right through the middle of the stinking woods and MAKE a new one.

The greatest threat to our souls is coming to believe that our paths in life choose us and that we no longer have control over them. They suck us on and our path becomes a people-mover.

Some of us have easier paths than others; I realize that. Some of us have the privilege of safer and more secure paths to choose from. It's all relative. But every one of us has the opportunity to decide how we will handle our next step.

For this person leaving that second job - turns out what made that choice hard was believing for far too long it was a choice that couldn't be made. And while this person was living their life, their life was waiting on them. Day after day.

I read this quote last night:

"Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life" - Robin Sharma

I would add to that - don't get on the people-movers in life because you think that's the only way to get from one place to the next. Just because a path seems harder - maybe impossible - well that doesn't make it so.

Often it just makes it a harder choice to make. A more difficult journey.

But often - it's the hard choices that ultimately feed our souls.