It occurred to me the other day that, for the most part, we all want the same things. From the most mundane — a cup of coffee or tea in the morning — to the most essential, like a roof over our heads that we can make into a home. The ways we want to go about achieving these shared desires, however, look drastically different on a per-person basis.
When you think about the sheer number of people on this planet, you can see why things often get messy.
Instinctively, we are always hunting for the lost members of our tribe — the ones who not only share the same wants and needs, but the exact idea of how to obtain them. From there, you have to put a little faith in your kin and hope that they’ll stick with you as you bring your wildest dreams to fruition. This may all seem easy enough, but the entire journey is laced with traps that are unseen to the naked eye. Fall into one of them, and you’ll pay the price by having to crawl out with the precious little time you have left in your life. (I think we all know at least one person who probably never will.)
When you first begin to find your kin, there’s the matter of getting to know how they arrived at the present and what they’ve managed to obtain thus far. This is perhaps the most important part, as it can tip you off to how they may go about achieving their overarching goals with you in the future (And I’d argue none of us spend enough time on it). Only then can you all start executing your ideas of how to reach your dreams — but having now lived on this planet for more than 30 years, I can say without a doubt that this is where your tribespeople will fall by the wayside.
You can put your agreements with each other to stay the path on paper, sign it in blood. You can sacrifice the objects of your desire that you’ve already worked so hard to obtain as a vow. You can even dedicate who you’ll become in the future to the greater cause.
I can promise you that there will be another person out there — a person with the same goals — who will intersect with your tribe’s path on their own travels.
That person may simply pass by, limiting their impact on your journey by only giving your kin a reason to pause.
Some people, though, like to linger at these intersections, and they have no regrets when they entice your tribe to join them on their route instead.
You have the right to be angry when it happens, so long as you remember that your trek across this universe was once the one to intersect and divert, too.
