An ill-defined line understood only through stillness and mindfulness.Photo by Jannes Jacobs on Unsplash

No matter who you are, what you do, or where you come from, you’re always experiencing things. This happens both passively and actively.

I’ve said for years that there are three primary ways to choose to live your life. They are:

Let life live you. This is passive, allowing rote, routine, and habit to dictate most days. This is neither positive nor negative, but shifts between both depending on people, places, and things.Curl up in a ball and await death. This tends to be passive-aggressive. People in this position expect the worst or ignore the here and now in favor of attempting to restore a past that never was or develop a largely unrealistic future. This is usually a negative approach.Take the wheel, set your course, drive your life. This is active. You consider your options, make choices and decisions, and work here and now to experience what’s out there. This is usually a positive approach.

Nobody chooses only one of the above. Everyone will flit from one to the other to the other from time to time. There are also additional variations for how to live your life that exist, but these are the three primary ones.

Why are they so unsettled? Because of change. Change is the one and only constant in the universe. And you can do little to nothing to control it. Fast and slow, it happens.

That’s why no path is set in stone. You and your desires change. That means that sometimes you shouldn’t stay the course.

This might not be your day

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has bad days. Things go wrong. Plans fail. The unexpected happens. Welcome to reality.

Likewise, everyone has times where they live passively, allowing life to live them, because it’s just easier in a given situation. Then, things might turn bad and make the idea of curling up in a ball and awaiting death have some appeal. But then, in time, you learn something new, get out of your funk, and take the wheel and start driving.

All of this might occur over hours, days, weeks, or longer. That depends on you and what choices and decisions you make. Or don’t make.

Everyone has both a conscious and subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the home of your memories, beliefs, values, and habits. This is where you are, passively, who you believe that you are. Or more specifically, who your ego believes you to be.

Ego is the notion of yourself that exists in your subconscious mind. However, that doesn’t mean it’s your true self. Often, this notion is based on outdated beliefs, values, habits, and even memories.

The ego wants to keep everything as it is. Homeostasis. Hence, the ego tends to resist change driven by active, consciously aware actions. But it’s via mindfulness that you can change who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Sometimes this feels like a lie. There will be circumstances where active change is extra challenging. But you are always empowered to choose your life’s path.

However, it’s never written in stone. And your ego, stable in your comfort zone, might blind you to a need to find a new path rather than stay the course.

Photo by Mārtiņš Zemlickis on UnsplashStay the course or find a new path?

Let’s go back to the only universal constant: Change. Change can, will, and does occur all the time. It may be lightning fast or glacially slow. Change can be both desirable and unwanted (sometimes at the same time). It is inevitable and in-and-of-itself neutral.

When you choose a path, any path, it’s empowering. That’s because you’re opting to choose option 3: Take the wheel, set your course, drive your life. Literally, you’re making active choices and decisions for who, what, where, how, and why you are.

However, no path is utterly straight, without obstacles, detours, and challenges. Then, added to that, what lights you up and brings you joy today might not be the same down the line. Just like what got you fired up 10 years ago isn’t at all what does so today.

Hence, you might find that the path you’ve chosen ceases to speak to you. Now you get to decide if you will stay the course or find a new path.

Any path you choose is an act of active conscious awareness, i.e., mindfulness. Mindfulness begins when you look within and identify what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and your actions. If you find these do not align with your desires for how to live your life, recognizing and acknowledging them mindfully opens the door to changing them.

Via mindfulness, you can see if staying the course is right for you or if it’s time to find a new path. This can be scary, but it’s utterly worthwhile. Why? Because you alone know what makes you tick, lights you up, and empowers you.

You alone can choose when to stay the course or start anew

The only person in your mind, body, and soul is you. You alone can think, feel, intend, and act for yourself. Nobody else can make choices and decisions for you, and who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Yes, there are influencers and gurus and others who offer assistance and guidance. Some are good, some are bad, some just are. Ultimately, you are the final decision maker.

How do you know how to know when to stay the course or choose a new path? By practicing stillness.

Stillness is and isn’t meditation. It can be, but for many, meditation is too loaded to apply. In place of that, you can take time to pause, be still, and reflect on your inner mind, body, and spirit.

This can be done via meditation or just making and taking time to be still. Sit in one place, in silence or with gentle sounds like white noise or binaural beats, and simply be. Focus on your breathing and let any thoughts you have pass through without taking hold of them.

You can start with 2 minutes and add time going forward. But pausing and applying stillness cuts down the noise within and without and lets you get to know yourself. That will help you comprehend if you should stay the course or choose a new path.

Practicing this regularly helps get you unstuck when life jams you up. It also makes it a lot easier to work with both wanted and unwanted change. When all is said and done, all of this helps you genuinely experience and live life to its fullest.

Should you stay the course or find a new path for yourself today?

This is the seventh-hundred-twenty-fourth (724) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.

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