There is no road less travelled.

Life is today.

Fact.

However, I have a tendency to think about tomorrow and the next day and the next, and is there life after death? You get the point.

Monday I was on the bus travelling from the airport and a man, who could have been my fathers age, sat towards the back and phoned his parents.

“Hey Ma! Guess what, I’m in New York! I know Ma… Yeah, it was kinda last minute, I know… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I have to do this for myself… I’ll pay you back soon, I promise”.

It got me thinking, there’s a fine line between finding yourself and losing yourself. I don’t know the mans story, and perhaps he is very happy, with his life in order. But I got the feeling he was still searching, and perhaps to his own demise?

We've all heard of the “the road less travelled”, which when Googled consists of paths weaving off into a beautiful forest. As if it’s some mystical adventure, with few who have lived to tell the story. Many look from a distance but stay where they are.  While some decide to wander off onto this road, stay too long and never get back on… to anything, ever. Others accidentally fall off the cliff hiding to the right and others become distracted by the birds and dance off into the distance.  BUT, and there’s always a but… some flourish, radiate and do more than just survive, they become alive. But, was that really the road? Or the person?

There’s a reason why travel, a change in occupation or setting off into the night alone, away from all of those we love, (referred too as the road less travelled) is rarely done, rarely commended and more often than not, feared. Because, in search of themselves, some people stay permanently lost. Like the man on the bus perhaps? In search of himself, did he lose himself? Was he so busy trying to find the road that he missed it?

I live in a world, where young adults are in constant conflict. Often it can feel like we have 1 of 2 options. Get into a top University, work our brains off, graduating top in the class. Land a job working for a company leading in the profession, promising a steady income with great career progression. Others are tempted to pick the apple from the tree, set off into the big wide world, walk streets they've never been too, talk to strangers, taste foods they can’t even pronounce and look up at the stars in wonder and think “what the hell am I doing here? Crap, should I go back now?”  But the crazy thing is, if you’re doing one, you’re often wishing you were doing the other. And usually, you can't do both at the same time. It's an internal battle to do better, be better, see more, earn more. 

As a girl, if you had straight hair you wanted curly and if you had curly, you wanted straight. What you don’t have, you want. But is the road less travelled complete rubbish? (no offence Robert Frost). Life is full of contradictions and this is surely one, because “walk a mile in my shoes” just goes to show, not one road is the same, so essentially we are all going down our own roads that are less travelled?

Whatever road we’re on, let it be just that – a road. No better or worse. We are all trying to find ourselves, but don't get so fixated that you lose yourself in the process. I decided to do my searching in the streets of New York City, but it may have turned out to be the nights alone in my bedroom staring at the ceiling that made the difference. I thought it was the road less travelled, but then I met so many people on the road that I wanted to push them off to give me some space to breathe again! And I realised, it wasn't any less travelled at all. 

There is a fine line between exploring and waisting time. I've been gone for 1.5 years now and I've decided to pull this New York adventure to a close 2 months earlier than planned. A mixture of reasons, and one being that my days were rolling by and I realised I'd squeezed the sponge for all its got. New York has been an amazing ride, I met people who will stay in my life forever, I've tasted some incredible food, learnt to be a little more assertive and yesterday I used my skills from high school athletics, needing to literally jump over a homeless man wedged in my front door, again. 

While I've been here, others are studying abroad, some working towards careers, getting married, building a family, working or studying. Every road imaginable being filled by hundreds everyday. I realised, it's time to stop worrying about the road, and more about the brain thats walking us down it. Just take a look at Instagram. Our feeds are full of #life (88 million) and #love (673 million) quotes, everyone has their own philosophy when sitting behind an iPhone screen. We love to post quotes saying "if its meant to be it'll be", but for the man laying outside of my apartment building this morning, his head cracked open from presumably falling onto the pavement, with no one around him but the owner of the grocery store - things didn't work out so good. 

So yes, life is today. But don't forget about tomorrow and remember to learn from yesterday. Worry less about the road and build that brain up to take you onward and upward.  

xxx