What if Life is Not a Straight Line?
This morning at the gym, I realized something uncomfortable: I have gotten weaker, not stronger.
After a bout of illness a month ago, I still haven’t recovered the strength I had before. It feels like a setback—to suddenly be lifting less weight rather than more. But the reality is, I am also lifting more than I was just last week.
It was then I realized—I’ve been living under the assumption that life is a straight line.
We expect to begin, progress, and continuously move forward. We expect to get stronger, smarter, and better every single day. But sometimes, life is two steps forward and three steps back. It can be hard to accept.
But that’s not “failure.” It’s just life.
Life does not continuously unfold in front of us like a paved road. It meanders. It turns. It curves around. It loops back and finds its way. Sometimes, years down the path, you find yourself in a place that feels right back where you started.
Except…
You are no longer the same.
You have changed.
You have grown.
Decades ago, I left my corporate life behind, packed my belongings into an SUV, and moved across the country to start over. I felt free. I felt aligned. I felt like the world was opening up in front of me—that the path was being made as I traveled it. It felt “right.” It hadn’t been forced; it had simply unfolded.
I assumed, when I made that shift, that that was it—that I had made the transition and now what was left was to simply live it.
Now, decades later, news from a friend in the midst of a crossroads has me pondering that shift I made decades ago. That feeling of freedom, of alignment. That feeling of the open road unfolding. That feeling of being exactly where I was supposed to be—the feeling of living into my calling. Where did that feeling go?
It leads to a question that haunts many of us: Can we actually get off track?
We worry about taking the “wrong” path, as if there is only one narrow trail through the woods and everything else is a mistake.
What if finding yourself back at a familiar crossroads is not a fault, but a feature?
What if it is not punishment, but possibility?
What if it is not failure, but freedom?
Years ago, while I was agonizing over that decision to leave my corporate life and wondering “what God wanted me to do” (the language I used at the time), a friend offered me a gem of wisdom:
“What if God would bless either choice?”
What if you can’t take the wrong path?
What if every path leads toward your destiny?
What if any path—even the meandering, looping, difficult one—is the right path for this moment?
If we stop worrying about making a “mistake,” we are left with a much more interesting question:
What is the learning available to me right here, exactly where I am?
A Note on the Journey...
If you find yourself at your own crossroads, or if you simply feel the tug of the “loose rein” pulling you off course, I am opening up a small, 5-week guided practice called The Return.
It isn’t a course on productivity or a “fix” for your life. It is a supported journey of small, sovereign acts—learning how to sit a little deeper, listen more clearly to your inner compass, and reclaim your agency in a noisy world.
We begin on May 17th. If you’d like to walk this part of the path with me you can see the details here.
