Anne is currently vacationing in Chile, so while she’s gone I’m taking over a few of her blogging days.  I’ll be covering MWF for the next two weeks.

Posted by Elizabeth

When I was in college, I had a friend.  I’ll call her “H.”  H. and I had a lot in common.  We were both drama majors who were interested in academic pursuits.  We were both singers.  We shared similar temperaments, found ourselves in many of the same classes, and, as a consequence, spent a lot of time together during a brief period of our college years.  We were so similar, in fact, that, under certain circumstances, we probably could have been best friends.  The only problem was that H. did everything just a little better than me.  H. enthusiastically told me about the paper she was publishing with one of our drama professors, based on an essay she had written for class.  After being promised a role in a show, I discovered a few months later that H. was given the part instead.  And not only did she sing better than me, but she was a dancer, too.  What evolved was a skewed dynamic, wherein I tried (and failed) to be just as good at her at all of these things, leading to a relationship founded in equal parts admiration and jealousy.

Our strange friendship came to a head when I discovered that, the previous summer, she had worked as a new student orientation leader on our campus, the very job I had considered the previous summer, but quickly dismissed because I had determined I wasn’t that interested in it.  But as soon as I learned that she had been an orientation leader, I immediately decided to apply for the next summer.  This time, H., as a returning staff member, would be on the selection committee.  I figured I’d be a shoe-in.  I ran the gauntlet of an exceedingly long application and interview process, and waited anxiously for the job offer — which never came.  When I ran into H. on campus a few days after receiving the news, I asked her point blank why I hadn’t gotten the job.  “You weren’t the best person,” she said, simply, to which I turned on my heels, made my way over the brick-lined square at the center of campus, and began crying.  I never saw H. again.

My whole life I’ve struggled to create my own path in this world.  I’ve played copycat with careers, schools, clothing styles, exercise routines, home decorating, travel locations, wedding plans, and food choices.  All too often, I observe someone I admire – someone who appears happy, successful, and achieving the things I want for my own life — and try my hardest to follow in their path, convinced I will see the same results for myself.  Instead, I follow their footsteps and am surprised and confused when it doesn’t turn out the same for me.  It took me a lot of years to figure out that it didn’t turn out the same for me because it wasn’t my path to follow.  Quite simply, there’s nothing wrong with setting out with the same destination in mind, but when we try to follow the same route to get there, we probably won’t be met with the same results when we arrive.

In a culture where we tend to revere the unique, special, and different, I wonder why this has been such a difficult lesson for me to learn?  Part of the answer, I think, is that we’re encouraged to create a unique destination more than a unique path to get there.  But with so many of us pursuing similar goals, I can’t help but believe that we’d learn more if we were taught to approach the journey, rather than the destination, in our own way.  When I traveled around the world, I found myself in the midst of so many people who were doing the same thing I was: circumnavigating the globe in some way, shape, or form.  We would swap tales of different travel destinations, and when someone would tell me how great the beaches were here, or the mountains were there, I immediately found myself rewriting my itinerary in my head.  And sometimes I’d go to these places, and usually be immediately disappointed when I arrived.  Why?  Because I was literally following someone else’s path, not mine.  The best times I had on the trip, the times I felt most like myself, were when I figured out the route on my own.  And most of the time, it was based not on what someone had told me that I’d like, but what I knew on some intuitive level that I’d like – inspired by photos I’d seen or an article I’d read or something even more ephemeral that simply spoke to me.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if we’re given a lot of opportunities to figure out what our path is.  Sometimes I feel as if the world is bombarding me from the outside in.  There are constant Facebook status updates to remind me of other people’s success stories.  I don’t need to bother figuring out my favorite things, because Oprah already has a list of her “Favorite Things” at the ready.  There are how-tos and guidebooks for everything, coaches who advise us with neatly outlined steps, all to keep us from — horror of horrors! — fumbling about on our own and discovering our own path.  Every day we are inundated with a million examples of how to go about accomplishing anything we can dream of, but the encroachment of all those outside voices makes it very difficult to hear the only voice that really matters:  our own.

So what’s the solution?  In the spirit of this very topic I suspect it’s different for everyone, but this year I’d like to work on creating my own path in life.  My goals aren’t terribly unique, but I’d like to create a path this is clearly of my own design.  So here’s my plan:

1. I will spend less time in the virtual world tuning into what others are doing, and spend more time in the real world tuned into what I’m doing.
2. Each time I find myself falling into step with someone whose life I admire, I will stop myself before traveling too far down the path and honestly ask myself, “Will this path work for me?  Is there a different way I could go about doing this that would resonate with me more?”
3. I will focus more on the journey than the destination.
4. I will recognize the differences as much as the similarities between my path and others.
5. I will continue to look to those I admire, gaining inspiration, rather than verbatim direction, from their unique way of being in the world.  (Ironically, the people I admire most are often those who have created their own path.)

I haven’t thought about H. in nearly 10 years, but what I realize in retrospect is that we weren’t all that similar.  In fact, we were probably more different than we were alike.  But at that time, on the cusp of adulthood and desperately searching for a path of my own, it was easy to see so much of myself in her, to want to travel the same seemingly successful path she was.   If it worked for her, why couldn’t it work for me?  Of course I had it all wrong.  But looking back, I’m glad she forced me off the path, stumbling into the dark on my own.  Somebody had to.