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In 1975 Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks broke up. Well, according to the lore, Stevie broke up with him. In his broken-hearted angst, he wrote the song, Go Your Own Way.
But I’m listening to the song the other day and it sparked a different idea – one I’ve long thought. Rather than a breakup song where we’re telling the girl she can go her own way…what if it were a song where we were admonishing ourselves to go the way we most want to go. “You’ve gotta find what works for you.” It’s a common statement, but I’ve found not that many people actually do it. This is why when I heard Lindsey’s song this time – the millionth time or so – I wasn’t thinking of the context he was thinking when he wrote it. I was thinking of how we’re mostly busy comparing ourselves to others and attempting to reverse engineer everything.
Much is written and said about how to do something. We’re busy trying to replicate the success of others. “Hey, look at what they’re doing. Let’s do that.” Then when it doesn’t work we slink away in despair wondering what went wrong. To appease our despair we go off on a new hunting expedition to find somebody else who is succeeding. What we’re really looking for is somebody else to copy. Another subject we can mimic in hopes we’ll achieve whatever success they’re achieving.
“If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” ~ Anonymous
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Just because my path is different doesn’t mean I’m lost.” ~Gerard Abrams
Maybe people find it more appealing to find somebody to copy and give that a go rather than looking more deeply inward to figure out the way they should go.
Maybe people put too much emphasis and pressure on succeeding. Maybe it’s a money thing. Or status thing.
Maybe people worry too much about what other people think of them. Or how others will judge them. Am I living in a nice enough house? Am I driving a nice enough car? Do I make enough money?
Maybe it’s all of these things – and more.
As usual, life isn’t so simple. Likely there are so many variables it’d take an MIT-trained mathematician to calculate.
“If you do not like where you are, move. You are not a tree.” ~ Jim Rohn
Maybe it’s time to figure out who and what we are. And who and what we most want to be – while being congruent with the realities of our personality. The core of who we are isn’t likely going to change. For instance, I’m an introvert. I’m not going to alter that, no matter how badly I may want to. There have been many times when I wished I were somebody different, but life has taught me it’s a waste of time and effort.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ~ Thomas Edison
Quitting too soon is a real thing. The problem of course is you don’t really know when you’ve quit too soon. How do you know?
We just have to be sure we’re diving into the correct pool, and giving it our best while understanding there are no guarantees we’ll make it to the other side.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~ Wayne Dyer
“A ship is always safe at shore. But that is not what it is built for.” – Albert Einstein
“You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday’s junk.” ~ Louise Smith
I’m not a tree, so I’m moving. Literally. And figuratively. I don’t yet have the details, but I’ll share them when I can.
“What feels like the end is often the beginning.” ~ Unknown
