The Price Of Taking The Path Less Traveled On

A worn top on the path less traveled

Recently, I’ve been wearing a tattered looking shirt a lot because it’s 100% cotton, worn thin and loose, and therefore perfect for the hot Singaporean weather. I must have worn it too often because my mom complained about my modest wardrobe and how all my clothes are worn and tired. She said my eco-friendly ways are making me look shabby.

Now, all she has seen lately is me in my home clothes. The complaint was a projection of how she feels about me. She worries that my current way of life and beliefs are depriving me of money (true) and beautiful clothes (not true) and it pains her.

I also think she’ll feel a lot better if my clothes weren’t predominantly black in color – Chinese moms tend to think black clothes bring bad juju. But I love black clothes because stains don’t show and I don’t have to worry about matching them. Oh well.

Sorry, mom…

I’ve changed.

It’s a funny little quibble, but it reminded me how far I’ve drifted from the obedient little girl I once was, who didn’t think about causes and stands and what made a meaningful life. I’ve become a person passionate about minimalism and the environment, concepts that not everyone cares to understand.

I’ve explained them to her, and she agrees that we should care for the environment, somehow the agreement just didn’t make the leap to my clothes or dreams. How do I tell her that I admire Rob Greenfield and Bea Johnson, whose wardrobes are so small they fit a backpack and a carry-on respectively, but their hearts are so full of love for our world?

It’s not just my mom too. Lately, I’ve looked around and realized that I’ve grown different from the people around me.

How did that happen?

As an introverted child, reading was a way for me to explore the world around me and feel a little less helpless. I was the only reader at home unless you counted my dad, who is a constant reader of newspapers.

As is the case with every reader, books opened my mind to alternative lives and worlds. They taught me that my world was only a little corner of humanity, and there’re millions of concepts and perspectives out there waiting for me to grasp and entertain if I so choose to. The things we expose ourselves to shape us into the person we are. Gradually, I stepped onto a mental path different from most people I know.

Yes, blame it on information! :p

When everyone was busy perfecting their makeup skills and beauty routines, I was busy simplifying my skincare routine. When everyone was planning their career paths and choosing insurance plans, I was at the bottom of my life, wondering if security and stability were all there is to life, ready to give it all up if they were.

I learned that they weren’t. Otherwise, I don’t think I’d still be here. Since then, I’ve become weirder. Who’d have thought that was possible?

Now that I’ve come to an age when I should be accumulating possessions and squirreling money towards retirement, I’ve been reducing my possessions (minimalism forever!) and living frugally as I figured things out.

I’m still figuring things out at 34 years old. Talk about late blooming. But it’s working! For once in my life, I think my priorities are correct. Even though I’ve veered so far away from the path I was on and everyone I was walking with.

I used to think I’ve been left behind, but I was the one who left.

Looking around me, I found it curious that friends and family aren’t concerned about what I was concerned about. Do they not feel like something in life needs to be figured out, and it’s not just about relationships or money? Surely they feel there’s something more to being human than having kids and money?

Why don’t people care more about what’s happening in our environment?

Then I remembered that we all have different perspectives, we simply don’t have the same priorities. Or maybe they do think about it fleetingly but other priorities captured their attention.

They found it just as strange that I’d endanger my future by not working on a career path and my old-age fund. I hear it in the suggestions they throw my way with good intentions. Except I am working on a career path, it’s just different from theirs.

We were once similar, but that time has passed. It makes me a little sad. I think that’s the price of taking the path less traveled on.

Facing the path I’ve chosen.

To be honest, I never thought I’d feel separated, yet I couldn’t have done it any other way. In fact, I’m happy with where I am at the moment. I’ve always been an idealist, the girl who’d rather be poor and happy than wealthy and empty. As impractical as it is, I can’t be anything else. Now it certainly looks like I’m headed that way – poor and happy.

Rather than changing my ways to become more like my peers (and becoming more societally-successful), I think I should accept that we’re not on the same path anymore. I’ve chosen the path less traveled on.

Do you think that’s stupid? I think what’s worse is going back and forth between two paths and eventually getting nowhere.

I don’t need to explain myself or convince anyone to come with me. The only thing I need to do is focus on where I’ve been going, trust that it’s the right direction, and keep going.

Unfortunately, that also means that I can no longer be that obedient little girl who followed my mom’s advice. And my mom will have to keep worrying about this wayward daughter who she can’t seem to understand.

I’m on my own path, but not alone.

The people whose path I was once on will always be on my mind, in my hearts, and I will always drop by to visit them. But my days of walking beside them have ended, unless someday, they came to a crossroad in their lives, took the curious one, and cross my path again.

Till then, I’ll have to let them go. And be brave on my own journey on the path less traveled. Thankfully, I have Anth with me. I choose to listen to my inner voice, to live a life authentic to myself.

Do you think I’m being silly? Or would you choose the same for yourself? Do you want to take the path less traveled on but life doesn’t permit it? Or do you think every path is beautiful and authentic? Let me know in the comments!