The Myth of the Right Path

Last night, I heard a question on a show that stopped me in my tracks:

“How do I know what the right path is?”

Something about it rang like a bell in my chest.

Because isn’t that what so many of us are trying to figure out?

We spend years—sometimes lifetimes—obsessing over whether we’re on the right path. As if there’s only one. As if missing it would mean missing our life altogether.

In North America, we ask children—yes, children—to choose “the path” as early as 12 or 14 years old. Choose your subjects. Choose your strengths. Choose your future. Choose wisely. Because this will determine where you land later in life. A college, a job, a status, a life.

But here’s the truth:

Most of us were never really choosing our path. We were selecting from a map someone else handed us.

A path drawn by well-meaning parents.

A path shaped by institutions.

A path carved by societal definitions of success: achievement, status, security.

And what happens when we stumble?

When we fall off that path?

When we don’t meet the benchmarks or yardsticks handed down like sacred law?

We call it failure.

But what if it’s just the river doing what rivers do—shifting, meandering, breaking banks, choosing new directions?

We’re taught to fear deviation.

We’re taught that flow without a fixed plan is chaos.

That to live without knowing exactly where we are going is irresponsible. Childish. Weak.

But I want to ask:

What’s the cost of living a life where we never get to feel the current beneath our feet?

What happens when we spend so much time trying to walk a path—we forget we’re already in a river?

Life is not a linear trail through the woods.

Life is a river. It twists. It turns.

Sometimes you float with ease.

Sometimes you hit rapids.

Sometimes you get stuck on a rock for longer than you’d like.

But the river flows on. Always.

The Western obsession with having a plan can be a dam—blocking the natural rhythm of living. We’re so busy mapping the terrain ahead that we miss the water touching our skin. The joy. The grief. The miracle of now.

And perhaps most heartbreakingly, we pass this obsession down.

Well-meaning parents—myself included—taught to measure our children’s progress by external metrics: grades, trophies, college acceptances, job titles.

We say we want them to be happy.

But we often mean we want them to be safe—in the ways the world tells us safety looks.

And so, we can unintentionally rob them of the very thing we long for them to have:

The freedom to feel their own way down the river.

So, maybe the question isn’t “What is the right path?”

Maybe the deeper question is:

What would it take to trust the river?

What if your life is not about figuring out the map…

…but learning how to float?