If you are going down a road and don’t like what’s in front of you, and look behind you and you don’t like what you see, get off the road. Create a new path.
There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from standing still while moving forward. You’re walking, you’re putting in the miles, but your surroundings feel increasingly hostile. You look ahead and see nothing but more of the same—more fog, more obstacles, more of the landscape you’ve grown to despise. You glance back over your shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of the good old days, a familiar landmark of comfort, but all you see is the rubble of past mistakes, old pains, and versions of yourself you’re trying to outrun.
It’s a horrible place to be: trapped between a future you dread and a past that haunts you.
In that moment, the road feels like a prison sentence. It feels like you have no choice but to keep putting one foot in front of the other, marching toward a horizon you don’t believe in.
But here is the truth that is easy to forget when you’re deep in the weeds: The road is not permanent. It is not a railroad track.
The most liberating, terrifying, and powerful act of self-preservation you can ever take is summarized in a simple, radical thought:
“If you are going down a road and don’t like what’s in front of you, and look behind you and you don’t like what you see, get off the road. Create a new path.”
The Fear That Keeps Us on the Tarmac
Why do we stay on a road that is clearly leading us to misery? Usually, it’s a combination of three things:
1. The Sunk Cost Fallacy: We’ve walked so far. We’ve invested so much time, energy, and emotion into this path. The thought of “wasting” that journey keeps us moving forward.
2. The Fear of the Unknown: The woods on either side of the road look dark and scary. At least on the road, we know where the potholes are. The devil we know feels safer than the devil we don’t.
3. The Need for Permission: We are waiting for a sign, for someone to tell us it’s okay to stop, or for a gate to miraculously open in the underbrush.
But staying on a road that leads to a future you hate, while being dragged by a past you can’t change, is not a strategy. It’s a slow surrender.
The Radical Act of Stepping Off
Getting off the road doesn’t mean you were wrong to have walked it. That path got you here. It taught you what you don’t want. It showed you the contours of your own resilience and your own limits. Honor the miles you walked, and then leave them.
Stepping into the untamed wilderness to create a new path is not about running away. It is about walking toward something, even if you can’t see it yet. It is an act of profound courage. It requires you to:
· Stop asking for directions from people who are happy on the old road. Their map is useless to you now.
· Accept that you will get scratched by branches. The new path is not a superhighway. It will be messy, and you will stumble.
· Trust your own compass. You are the only one who knows what direction feels like sunlight to your soul.
How a Path Is Made
We often think of paths as things that already exist. But every road, every trail, every highway was once just an idea in someone’s mind. They were created by the first person who was brave enough to say, “I’m going this way instead.”
And that is how you create your new path. Not with a bulldozer, but with one step at a time.
You take a step off the asphalt and onto the soil. You push aside a branch. You walk a little further. The next day, you do it again. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the grass bends to your will. The earth compacts under your conviction. You look back one day and realize you are no longer on the road—you are on your way.
You cannot change the landscape behind you. The past is a fixed map. But the future? The future is a wilderness waiting for a trailblazer.
If you are tired of walking toward a future you hate while being haunted by a past you can’t change, stop.
Step off the road.
The path you create for yourself might just be the most important journey you ever take.
Inspired by :
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18-19, NIV)
Thanks for reading. Stay strong and keep going, for brighter days lie ahead. Shalom and life to you.
