Big Decisions
All my life, I’ve feared the hinge-moments, the choices that seem to tilt a whole existence. Should I marry this woman or walk away? Should I take this job or turn it down? I imagined each decision as a trapdoor: step wrong, and the rest of my life would be sealed in regret.
Kierkegaard, dark Dane that he was, once wrote: “Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, and you will also regret it.” That line stayed with me. It was less a consolation than a curse: no path without its shadows.
A traveler came to a roadside inn. His boots were worn, his purse was thin, and his map showed two roads forward. East lay mountains, mines, rough men chasing fortune. West lay coastland, markets, ships bound for distant shores.
He drank a cup of sour wine and went to bed with the choice gnawing at him.
That night he dreamed he took the eastern road. He saw himself bent over in the mines, coin in his hand but pain in his back. He quarreled with companions, yet also learned their songs. One day he slipped on shale, broke a bone, and for months he limped. And still, in the same dream, he married a widow from the mountain town. They raised children, and in their laughter he found a joy that steadied him.
Then the dream turned, and he saw the western road. There he traded in the harbor, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing, haggling like a fox. He voyaged across seas, saw wonders and terrors alike. He drank too much, nearly drowned in a storm, but among sailors he found fellowship, and in their company nights rang with laughter.
When the traveler woke, both dreams clung to him like morning mist. He understood then that no road was free of hardship, and none was without its gifts. Mountains or harbors, storms or broken bones—those were only the conditions, not the essence. What mattered was how he met them.
A man does not walk a straight line. He stumbles, he slips, he veers too far one way. But at every moment he can notice where he is, shift his weight, correct his step. Friends appear, strangers lend a hand, new chances open where old ones close. What seemed like disaster can turn into an opening. What seemed like triumph can unravel. Yet as long as he stays awake to the path beneath his feet, he is never lost.
The truth is, the map matters less than the walker. The future is not sealed by one choice at an inn. It is shaped again and again, by each small turn of attention, by each moment of honesty, by the willingness to meet life as it comes.
So the traveler folded his map, pulled on his boots, and stepped into the day, unafraid to make a wrong big decision.