how do you know if your on the right path in life?

[psychoslice]

You will know when all paths fall away, and your left alone, only then will you realize your true Being, all paths no matter how beautiful only take you away from where you are already, and where you are already is home.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by psychoslice

You will know when all paths fall away, and your left alone, only then will you realize your true Being, all paths no matter how beautiful only take you away from where you are already, and where you are already is home.

Spoken like someone who is old enough, wise enough and experienced enough to have realized that in life, finally and thank god! Next time I incarnate I'm showing up as a 45 year-old, I have no wish to go through those first four decades of "learning things" again, yeesh.

[lostchild88]

wow. Thank you all, for all the great advice.. "I have no wish to go through those first four decades of "learning things" again". lol I'm with you on this one, Baile.

Originally Posted by Wonderer

Makes sense, but what if you are presented with 2 paths, both leading to something beautiful, but by choosing one, you loose the other!

And you cannot live/be happy with just one of them, you need both, but you can only have one...

This may seem like the most ridiculous response, but at that point Id toss a coin.
Im one that can make choices easily. I have the "if its mean to be, it will" and "all happens for a reason" philosophy.
I happen to live with two pretty indecisive people and this is what Ive convinced them to do to simplify life for all involved....

Lostchild, I don't know how old you are, I'm 63, my advice; if your just starting out on your quest for a career then choose something you enjoy. Are there wrong choices in a career, you bet there is, allot of people just go through life working and being frustrated with life and most of the time it is due to the field of employment they have taken. If your your career is spiritually rewarding then you have the best of both, however, if your career impedes your spiritual quest then one has to ask what is my priority.

Originally Posted by Baile

I'm sorry to hear that Wonderer. I'd be interested in hearing why you feel that way. I used to struggle with guilt from life choices I made many years ago. But I've been fortunate in that I've been able to work through those feelings and come to appreciate my life for what it is now, rather than worrying about what happened way back when.

That's an easy one for me. You've made a commitment to have a family, therefore the choice is to continue on that path. It would be selfish otherwise. What parent wouldn't put their entire life on hold for the well-being of their child? And again, if both choices turn out to be perfectly beautiful, wouldn't you happily embrace the awesome responsibility of raising and teaching a child, and giving all your love to that little human being?

What I don't get is why the family can't move somewhere new, together. Why does it have to be either-or? If for example one partner refuses to even discuss the possibility of moving elsewhere, then that tells me there's a dysfunction in the relationship. Meaning, the two choices aren't equally acceptable and "beautiful" at all. Which then changes the entire question and scenario. IMO, there is nothing more useless than two adults remaining together in a dysfunctional relationship.

Hi Baile,


Thanks for your reply :) I agree with what you said. But let me explain what I mean.

I was brought up on a small island and we were very poor. Our family was quite dysfunctional. So I knew, that one day, I had to leave as there was nothing for me there. And I made a plan and had a goal, got my degree from University and left to a different country. Wow, when I landed, I felt home straight away and loved every bit of it. Had a great job, lots of prospects and life ahead looked wonderful. I loved every bit of that place.

Then after some time, I was temporarily back on the island and by sheer coincidence met with this wonderful lady, whom is today my wife.

See I had a big choice to make, which totally changed my life. I either choose her and stay on the island which I hated or go back and continue my life where I felt home and had a bright future.

I was so in love with her, that I chose her and stayed there. After all, she is adventurous and I thought she would move with me. Wrong. As she is very close to her family and loves the island, every bit of it. She had also made it clear that she wanted to stay there. I took a risk.

Yes, she tried twice to move with me there, but hated it and fell depressed. By the last time we moved, we had a daughter. So one morning, she packed and went back to the island. By the time she left, I was living my dream again. Great job in the city, nice big house with the garden as I've always wanted and awesome weekends always exploring and doing new things. We had made many friends too. But that was not enough for her. She wants different things (staying in the cave with family and friends and her old job)

Like you said, I had made a commitment so I left everything, all my dream and went back to be with them. And now I feel in prison, because there are no job opportunities for me here and the island is very small so not much to explore. Yeah, maybe I have issues to with the island and the people on it and want to run away from it. But that's just part of it. The standard of living is much much lower here.

Anyway, what I mean is that at times, when we make a decision, we cannot go back. I cannot just leave them and go back to my dream. It would not be a complete dream without them anyway. Plus I'd never want to hurt or abandon my little angle :)

At this stage, I am not sure if it's our free will which leads us to where we are, or our destiny, planed life before we come to earth. Or maybe a combination of both. All I know is that some decisions are very important to consider them well as there is no going back. Now I have to suffer being on this island but with my loved ones, or be in a place that makes me happy and suffer without them. I choose the former, but it's still tough and trying to find ways to be happy here.

And life goes on :)

Originally Posted by partofme

This may seem like the most ridiculous response, but at that point Id toss a coin.
Im one that can make choices easily. I have the "if its mean to be, it will" and "all happens for a reason" philosophy.
I happen to live with two pretty indecisive people and this is what Ive convinced them to do to simplify life for all involved....

Yeah, I know that philosophy. But the thing is that when one is suffering and not happy, then it's not easy at all :)

Originally Posted by psychoslice

You will know when all paths fall away, and your left alone, only then will you realize your true Being, all paths no matter how beautiful only take you away from where you are already, and where you are already is home.

Seems quite a deep thought this :)

Care explaining further cause I'm not sure I grasped it? :)

[H:O:R:A:C:E]

There is much wisdom in the posts on this thread.
To the original post, I would suggest meditation as a means to learning "if you are on the right path".
Through meditation, we can calm ourselves and quiet all the competing "voices" that seek to influence our choices.
In a peaceful state of mind, we can see that happiness and fulfillment don't reside in things outside of ourselves;
they spring forth from within us, irregardless of life circumstances.

Meditation can help us in making our choices as well. Instead of intellectually calculating which choices will bring us happiness,
allow those choices to be made from the heart, the emotional center of our being,
which already knows what we really want (and the best way to get there).

For Wonderer, I believe that psychoslice may have been referencing the idea that
happiness doesn't come to us through following any particular pathway; it resides "inside" of us all-the-time.
It's sorta like how Dorothy Gale, at the end of the Wizard of Oz says: "there's no place like home".
:)

[Arcturus]

Originally Posted by psychoslice

You will know when all paths fall away, and your left alone, only then will you realize your true Being, all paths no matter how beautiful only take you away from where you are already, and where you are already is home.

do you understand this on just an intellectual level or do you live it with your whole being?