The Path Diverged

There is an old map in the mansion's library.

It was drawn by an explorer a hundred years ago,

and the destination is marked with a large sign.

It says, "The City of Gold."

However, in the margins of the map, it is written in small letters:

"I could not reach the destination. But what I found along the way was not on any map."

I have strayed far from my dream.

Faced with that fact, one stands still.

It is not the life I planned.

It is not the place I aimed for.

It is not the person I imagined myself to be.

Somewhere, I took a wrong turn.

Or perhaps, I lost my way.

Or perhaps, the path collapsed.

By the time I realized it, I had already come a long way.

There is a story about a woman.

She had a dream of becoming a doctor.

Since she was a child, that was all she aimed for.

She studied. She worked hard. She sacrificed her sleep.

However, she failed the entrance exam.

I spent a year as a ronin. I failed again.

Another year. I failed again.

In the third year, she gave up.

She chose a different path.

She entered nursing school. She became a nurse.

Ten years passed since then. She thought to herself.

"My life is a failure."

She had strayed far from her dream.

Not a doctor, but a nurse.

To her, that was a defeat.

However, one day.

A patient said.

"I'm glad you were here. You looked after me more than any doctor did."

Those words shook something inside her.

When people stray from their dreams, they make one of two choices.

One is to keep lamenting.

"If only I could have gone down that path."

"If only that dream had come true"

"If only I had made a different choice back then"

Keep looking at the past.

Keep imagining the life that could have been.

And keep denying the place where you are now.

The other way is to look at where you are now.

"This is not the place of my dreams. But what is here?"

That question changes your perspective.

To stray from a dream is to step off the map.

If you have a map, the path is clear.

You know where you are going and what you should do; everything is understood.

However, when you step off the map,

for the first time, you see things that are not on the map.

There is the experience of a certain mountaineer.

He was aiming for the summit of Everest.

That was his life's dream.

On the third day of the climb.

The weather worsened. The route was closed.

He had no choice but to turn back.

On his way down, he strayed onto a side path.

There, he found a small village.

The villagers welcomed him warmly.

They shared a meal and talked.

An old man in the village said,

Many climbers pass by here. They only look at the summit. But do you know what is at the summit? Nothing. Just rocks and ice.

Then, why do you climb?

That is for you to answer. However, I believe that what is important is not the summit, but what you find along the way.

When you stray from your dream, at first, you only see the loss.

What you lost.

What you could not reach.

What did not come true.

These things cover your field of vision.

However, as time passes, you begin to see other things.

A woman who became a nurse.

She was able to have time to deeply engage with her patients.

Time that doctors do not have.

If she had become a doctor, she would have efficiently diagnosed them in the exam room,

written prescriptions, and moved on to the next patient.

But as a nurse, she held their hands in their hospital rooms,

listened to their anxieties, and rushed over whenever she was called in the middle of the night.

That was not the shape of her dream.

However, it was a different kind of meaning.

Another aspect of diverging from a dream.

Freedom.

When people have a dream, they are bound by it.

"I must do this."

"There is no other path."

"Anything else is a failure."

That way of thinking narrows one's perspective.

But when a dream collapses, the frame comes off.

"I can no longer go down that path. But I can go anywhere."

The absence of constraints is

It is a loss, but it is also a liberation.

There is a story about an entrepreneur.

He had a dream of becoming an executive at a large corporation.

He earned an MBA, joined a strategy consulting firm, and

built his career smoothly.

However, at the age of forty, he was laid off.

His dream had collapsed.

At first, he was in despair.

He thought, "My life is over."

But a few months later, he suddenly thought,

"I have nothing left to lose. So, what was it that I really wanted to do?"

That question released something he had kept sealed away.

He opened a small cafe.

As a business executive, it was a demotion.

His income decreased. He also lost his social status.

However, for the first time, he owned his own shop.

He created a space according to his own discretion.

I spoke directly with the customer.

"Was this really what I wanted to do?"

He realized.

The dream of being an executive at a large corporation,

was actually the expectation of others.

Diverging from a dream is, at times,

reaching your true self.

If the dream itself was something planted by someone else.

Societal expectations. Parents' wishes. The world's image of success.

The version of myself that followed those things crumbles along with the dream.

Then, what remains.

That might be the true self.

However, not every path diverged,

leads to a good result.

Sometimes, you really do make the wrong choice.

Sometimes, you really do fail.

What is important is,what you do on the path you diverged onto.

Will you continue to lament? Will you remain trapped in the past?

Or will you find something where you are now?

A certain philosopher once wrote:

"Life has no meaning. However, you can give meaning to life. In any situation, you have the freedom to find meaning there."

A path that diverged from the dream.

There may be no meaning in it.

However, you can create meaning.

Returning to the map of the mansion.

The explorer did not reach the golden city.

But in the margins, it continues like this:

"The people I met along the way, the scenery I saw, the things I learned. They were worth more than gold. I do not regret not reaching my destination."

I have diverged greatly from my dream.

That fact cannot be changed.

However, the meaning of it can be created from here on.

"This path was a mistake."

You can end it that way, too.

"There was another treasure on this path."

You can rewrite it that way, too.

Which one will you choose?

That is up to you.

You cannot change the past.

However, you can change the meaning of the past.

Will you curse the path you strayed onto?

Or will you find something on that stray path?

Precisely because it is a place not on the map,

there might be something there that no one has ever seen.

The dream has collapsed.

But I am still here.

I will start from that fact.

There is no new map.

However,I can leave footprints behind.

Someone, someday,

might follow those footprints.

"Ah, so this path existed too," I thought.

In the deep sea, amidst the silence