At various times throughout our lives we come to crossroads. Some are a simple choosing of … the easiest looking road or perhaps, ‘the road less traveled’? Some are significant, an ethical choice. Some are forcing us to choose between two unknowns, or two goods, or bads, or wanting both. But unless we want to stand indefinitely in the place of indecision, eventually we do need to make a choice. Another question that impacts the decision is our view of whether some choices are reversible – can we ever go back and do a ‘re do’?
When you come to your crossroad do you have clearly in mind your basis for making a decision? How are you deciding? These are the times that we typically feel the most rushed to make a decision, any decision, and these are definitely the times that we shouldn’t rush the decision… especially if there’s no turning back. Regardless of the context of the need for a decision, while I don’t see the need to ‘burn bridges’, I think we have to assume that there will be no going back. There’s something that seems to compel us to move forward, to push through rather than retracing steps.
While crossroads make us stop, they can also become excellent times of reassessing if the path we are on continues to be viable for us. Perhaps, of the options available to us, continuing on the path we are is not in our best interests, that we need to enhance our opportunity for success. Or maybe we reaffirm that this particular road IS the road to our fulfillment. Now that we are at a crossroad, we need to have the goal firmly in mind or we need to refine that goal based on the options the crossroad presents.
It may be that the primary value of a crossroad is to help us face our issues in our life, to reassess our own character as well as the obvious decision of which road to follow. Crossroads can be an effective method to aid us in being conscious of our traits and behaviors. Who we want to be make become a crossroad. In the final analysis though is our determination of what we think about the crossroads in our life? How do you make your decision at this time?
Are you there now???
