We’re so afraid to make mistakes.

To do the ‘wrong’ thing. To come to a fork in the road and pick the wrong path.

Because the path less traveled is definitely more unique, heroic and mysteriously unchartered – not to mention tirelessly (and misleadingly) advertised by Mr. Frost. But the path more traveled? That’s tried and true; we know it works because so many have gone down the road before us and have been just fine. So many have taken the beaten path, the generic route, and their lives have turned out totally ok (or so it seems).

The paths we choose don’t define us, they guide us. We define what those paths entail and whether they’re full of hard work or laziness, passion or passiveness, happiness or hopelessness. The path is a general direction, but what’s ahead on that path? That’s for us to create, to innovate and to nurture. The path we choose does indeed say something about who we are, but the journeys we create on our paths tell so much more; our journeys are what define us and give every path the chance to be the right path.

We don’t always have to choose the path less traveled. We don’t always have to do everything differently, just for the sake of making a famed name for ourselves. We don’t have to be unique to be successful, but we do need to be successfully unique. Our path doesn’t matter, but who we are on that path is so critical to who we want to be and to who we’re becoming. And it’s important that we make that person a good one – one with true intentions and an incredible ability to love.

I can’t say that there are no such things as mistakes, because there are, and I make them every day. But making a mistake in the path you choose, or in the million and one ‘life altering decisions’ that you make when you’re a 20-something, those are the ‘mistakes’ that are harder to justify, because those are the ones that help to make you who you are. Those decisions place you on a path, and they test your ability to adapt and perform; they give you a chance to create your own unique happiness, regardless of what (un)populated path you choose.

Every choice you’ve made in your life has led you to this moment. Every choice has helped create you into this beautiful, perfect, capable, loving human being, full of potential and promise. Every choice has led you to this opportunity to be able to ask yourself, right now: who do you want to be? And every choice has led you to your next choice: who will you be?

Mistakes are just a simple miss take on life and this magnificent journey.