Fortune cookies are real… so now I believe it. Two days before my wedding on Friday December 2008, my wife ate at a Chinese restaurant, where she received a fortune cookie that read, “She awaits you a lifetime of happiness.” The next day, Thursday, she went out to eat Chinese again and her fortune cookie said, “Next Friday will be an exciting time for you.” Was this a coincidence or was this a specific message brought by the Universe to my beautiful bride-to-be?
The story of the fortune cookie does not end here. Last night I shared my career ambitions, goals and dreams for my life with my wife. I explained why I believe I have been blessed with an adoring wife and son, a wonderful family, great friends, and a successful career. I explained to Korrel that I have achieved such riches because of my growing capacity for love, commitment to personal growth, dedication to my career, belief in my dreams, and most importantly, my ability to make the right decisions in the moment. appropriate. An hour after that discussion, in a Chinese restaurant, my fortune cookie read: “Life is a series of choices, today yours are good.” So I knew I had to write something.
I believe that a successful life comes from making the right choices at the right time, as well as the desire to pursue the goals inherent in these choices. Robert Frost met the challenge of “choices” in his poem The Road Less Travelled. In this poem, he saw the value of ending up at a “crossroads” in life.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow forest
And I’m sorry I couldn’t travel both
And be a traveler, a long time I was
And I looked down one as far as I could”
At this crossroads, we are faced with two clearly different paths, which have two equally different results. Perhaps, at this crossroads, we are led to the biggest choice of our lives: in which direction to proceed? Do we take the path that is most familiar to us, the one that we can navigate in the dark, with our eyes closed; or we take the path that is unknown, scary and full of obstacles and unpredictable results.
The familiar path offers predictability and safety, but only a limited version of “success.” However, the “road less travelled” is risky in nature, but it has the potential to ultimately change your life. When you travel the road less travelled, there is no turning back; life changes forever and you can never go back to the old life of security and predictability. This risky path is where choices manifest in dreams and dreams manifest in reality.
“Two paths diverged in a forest,
and took the least traveled.
And that has made all the difference.”
Paul Coelho, the author of “The Alchemist”, believes that we all have the ability to achieve our “personal legend”, which is the best possible version of ourselves: the person of our dreams. Mr. Coelho believes that by following his personal legend, he has chosen “the path that God has chosen for you here on Earth.” It is a path to the life you believe in, the goals you have chosen, and the dreams you know belong to you. Through difficult choices, a commitment to moral and ethical principles, the courage to see mistakes or poor results as gifts, and the humility to not miss out on moments of success, one can achieve their “personal legend.”
Like taking the “road less travelled,” achieving a personal legend can come at a cost. Life consists of a series of “mini crossroads,” where good decisions, despite the best of intentions, can result in failure and disappointment. For those of us who pursue our personal legend, we know that the highest and most heartfelt goals in life can sometimes end in failure and disappointment; but still we persevere. By dedicating ourselves to the search for our best version of ourselves, we are able to transform our moments of disappointment, disappointment or shame, into goals and dreams fulfilled.
The words of Robert Frost and Paul Coelho have inspired me to understand that because life is truly a series of choices, we can achieve our dreams. We all come into this imperfect world, in imperfect families, and as imperfect versions of ourselves. We all have our stories of dysfunctional families, financial difficulties, medical limitations, self-esteem issues, etc. God intended for all of us to be able, through conscious choices, to grow and develop into something special. Without committing ourselves to a road less traveled or a path to our personal legend, we live our lives, at best, in mediocrity: never fully knowing how far we might have progressed, who we might have become, and what effect on the world we could have. done.
It is through a series of choices and the perseverance to pursue the goals inherent in these choices that we achieve our God-given potential. Elections lead us to dreams.
