Way of the turtle

particular niche in the software industry, I might be more success-
ful, at least as others measure success. 
True to my nature, I don’t care about others’ opinions of my suc-
cess. They are not going to be the ones at my deathbed wondering
whether I made a difference, whether I lived well and fully. I am. 
The Track to Nowhere
Most of my oldest friends think I am going through some sort of
prolonged midlife crisis. I probably seem irresponsible and uncon-
ventional to them. If having a midlife crisis means examining your
life and deciding that you don’t want to live by a set of success cri-
teria created by society and the media, I am guilty as charged. I
highly recommend having one if you haven’t done so already. The
alternative is much less interesting.
I constantly meet people who have lost themselves in an empty
pursuit of what they ought to do. In an effort to please their parents
and teachers, to get a good job, to make a lot of money, and so on,
When All Is Said and Done
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they followed a path set out by others rather than one they chose
for themselves. For some, this started in grammar school; for oth-
ers, it happened as late as college or perhaps shortly after they
started their first real jobs and began to take on responsibilities.
Invariably, the path took them far from their dreams and what they
had hoped they would become. They lost sight of the fact that they
had a choice: They could decide at any time to do something
else—decide perhaps to step off the path and explore the world and
themselves a bit.
In many companies there is a word for this path. It is called a
career track, or track for short. That is a good analogy because a
train engineer cannot decide what route to take; those decisions
are made by the people who set out the track and those who con-
trol the switches along the way. I have been thinking about this phe-
nomenon quite a bit lately, and it occurs to me that the reason most
people don’t follow their dreams is that they are afraid of failing in
their endeavors. They believe it is better to follow a predetermined
path that they know they can achieve rather than one of their own
making where they will be tested. 
I don’t believe that anyone consciously makes this decision; it
happens by default or through lack of action. People do not say to
themselves: “I’d really like a boring job working for a company I
hate.” It just happens. 
They step onto the track without realizing it. Then, once they
are on it, it takes a conscious effort to leave it. Otherwise they will
end up wherever it leads, which is probably not where they wanted
to go. Since they did not step consciously onto the track, they may
not even realize where they are until they find themselves very far
away from their dreams.