Exits . . . Maybe there is an Art to it.

I’ve been kicking this around lately when a friend was talking about life choices and sometimes just the normal day to day dealings with things and other people.

One of the personal secrets to happiness . . .

“Control your exits.” I mean it literally.

When doing things or going to a gathering or party . . . Drive yourself so you can leave when you’re ready. Go to other people’s houses instead of inviting them to yours. There’s nothing worse than seeing someone lean back and cross their legs when you’re ready to go to home or ready for bed.

It may make you laugh, but I actually think there’s truth to that. I have felt trapped before unable to exit was when I was ready to go. I run at max speed and when it comes time to rest and recharge I want to be able to do it without having to change everyone else’s agenda. In retrospect, it is more interesting to me when I think about it less literally. My friend and I have been holding an ongoing conversation about change, about how life has stages, and each stage demands something different from you . . . for a while. And then it doesn’t. You move into a new stage . . . on purpose or by accident, gracefully or stumbling . . . you look around and realize that what you’ve been doing won’t work anymore. You have to change.

Many of us, for different reasons, are entering new stages, and here’s the tricky part. In the old, familiar landscape of my life, I knew how to get places. I understood Point A to Point B, and for better or worse, the path between was well worn. But lately life keeps springing up all around me, nothing looks the same as it used to. Sometimes I’m not exactly sure of my starting point, let alone my destination. I just have to stop running at 100 miles per hour and step out on a path and walk for a while.

“What if it’s the wrong path?” my friend asked me recently.

Then I get off and take a different one, not at all sure that was the right answer. Many people do not want to walk down a path for a while and then find out it’s the wrong one. It may feel as though you are wasting time, and changing directions makes people feel like a flake. I get that. I can see where stepping off the path all the time might lead you, ultimately, nowhere.

And so I keep circling around the concept of “Control your exits,” and I think that may be the key. Writing and life and how it all goes together can be interesting while trying at times. It can be how sometimes when you’re working on a story, you write five pages of crap just so you can get to the last paragraph . . . on that last page . . . that has something. THE something you’ve been looking for, THE something from which the rest of the story grows. Sometimes, to figure out what your story IS, you have to figure out what it isn’t. And to do that, you have to start writing.

In life, I think maybe you have to start walking, with your eyes wide open, and you heart too. You have to learn to trust yourself, believe that when it all feels right, it is (at least for now); acknowledge that when it feels wrong, it may be time to step off the path you’ve chosen.

Purposefully.

Knowing more at the moment about what your life isn’t than what it is, but controlling your exit, because maybe finding the right path, in the end, is as much a process of elimination as it is the reward of great personal vision.

I find comfort in that.

How about you?

Ice