For a long time, I lived by someone else’s map. The “shoulds” were endless: I should chase stability, not passion. That’s how I ended up studying Business Administration as an undergrad instead of journalism, which was what I wanted. I should write what’s safe, not what stirs my soul. I should put my own dreams on hold until everything else and everyone else is taken care of.
Maybe you know that feeling too, the weight of expectations, spoken or unspoken, shaping the way you move through life. Maybe that’s something we never get totally away from.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned, there is no one ‘right” path except the one that feels like mine.
My creative journey has been far from neat or predictable. It’s been full of wrong turns, detours, and moments where I couldn’t see the road at all and thought of giving up. But every time I picked up a pen, a paintbrush, or even my journal, I heard a whisper: this is where you come alive.
It isn’t easy to step away from what others think I “should” do. It’s still scary sometimes. But choosing my own path, the one that lets me tell the stories I believe in, paint the colors that make my heart sing, even when it appeals to no one but me, and dreaming without limits, has been the bravest and most beautiful decision of my life.
If you’re standing at a crossroads, unsure which way to turn, maybe this is your reminder. You are allowed to choose the road that feels like home, even if no one else understands it yet.
Here’s to carving out our own messy, magical paths, one choice, one brushstroke, one word at a time.