Reading 'The Pathless Path': A Life with Pre-Set Answers, or a Journey Embracing the Unknown?

I just started reading “The Pathless Path” today, and a sentence at the beginning really resonated with me:

This means that for many people, expectations of life are centered around a small number of positive events that occur while we are young.

This actually reminds me of a passage—

“Back in our day, people matured late, but married early. Thinking about it now, the ancestors who invented this system carefully prepared a kind way of living: before all that messy stuff grew in your heart, you were already married. It’s like giving you the answer before giving you the question. By the time things start growing in your heart, you might feel restless, but seeing that the answer is already there, as long as it’s not too absurdly wrong, you hesitate for a bit, and life has already moved on.”

These two statements are actually talking about the same thing. Our lives seem to be pre-set—we must complete several big things while young, as if we got a standard answer first, then went on to solve life’s problems.

There’s one point in the book that really hit home: people always want to engage in work that’s important to them and aligns with their inner desires (that is, work they can enjoy).

But this is precisely where the contradiction lies. Ultimately, we still have to see whether we can walk out of that pre-set path and embrace true unknowns and opportunities.

Read it, learned it, profited!