“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
But there is so much that stops us from taking the risk. We are accustomed to being able to quickly find information – ‘just Google it,’ and there is no shortage of life coaches, wise people and gurus who can give us answers as soon as we want them. The clue is in the word ‘quickly’. We find it hard to be ‘capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ as the poet John Keats put it.
When we sense that something has changed, that we have come to a crossroads, we are either paralysed trying to work out which way to go or we thrash around trying one thing after another. It is so much easier to be doing something rather than nothing for most of us. Sometimes what we need is to just stop. Give ourselves time and space. Unlike the implication of the opening quote, perhaps it does matter which way we go. Crossroads can be really important moments when the direction of our lives might be changed irrevocably. Such moments deserve to be honoured with our attention.
Sometimes we need to go deeper, question what the crossroad is about, what decision we are really having to make, what is being required of us, what our deepest truest self is seeking. What if we stopped to listen?