To hit the door and keep on going,
That is his desire;
To turn his back and just walk out,
To leave it all behind –

So many people, everywhere
Become a slave to something,
And turn to powder underneath
A voluntary

Grind

If you had it to do all over again, would you?

Your work choices? Where you live? Your relationships?

Or would you choose… a different life?

We can’t go backwards, of course. As Kierkegaard said, “It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

So, what can you learn today from how you answered the questions above? What is your pathway to better?

I often wonder about this, not so much where I’m concerned, but where the people closest to me are concerned.

My wife sometimes tells me stories about the days before I met her: owning businesses, traveling, exploring. The days before she had a husband, kids, her current responsibilities. Days she obviously misses. And I wonder, Does she rue her choices? Would she do it differently if she could?

Did she used to be happier?

Did she… settle?

I realize that husbands aren’t supposed to have the kind of thoughts and insecurities that I have, but, there it is.

I’m a poet, so I prefer to work with individuals rather than generalities. If someone decides to leave a job, or a career, or a relationship, I’m interested in the specific circumstances of the story.

Everyone one of us has left something or somebody behind in our lifetimes, and has had it done to us. It might be friendships that drift away, lost or left jobs, or any other type of thing. And every story is different.

When we can see other people’s problems and pains, and start to feel them rather than minimize them or explain why ours are worse, we begin to really feel empathy.

And we could almost all stand to feel a little more of that.