The Atlas of Your Life

When you look back at your life, do you have an inkling of the chart you have drawn with your comings and goings? Do you have an insight into the atlas of your heart, what it was that drove you down the pathways you have actually charted? Wherever you are on that pathway, take a moment to check the atlas. Are you anywhere on the trail you originally intended to forge? Is all that for the better or is it time for a course correction? We can be the master of our own fortunes, ….or can we?

When I was wee one, my ambition was to be a cub-reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. In those days the Press was one of the great newspapers in the world, with many of the world’s notables opining for us in its pages. I had stories to tell, messages to send, and I wanted to send them. I never even got close to that, distracted by my struggles to right the world’s ills, and ambushed by my drive to assemble some semblance of a professional status, I veered far off that course.

In my early years I saw myself as a willing sacrifice, ready to risk life and limb to achieve goals that were more important to me than my own life, my own future. I was a zealot for my causes. I always knew I was going to be a hero, that’s what I demanded of myself. I read about how to do that, learned about that, from the books I read in the library. Then I, unexpectedly, became the father of a child, and all that was nonsense to be put aside to achieve the humdrum. Not that I did not feel resentment that the fate I had brought upon myself had forced me to become an adult instead of a symbol.

Are you getting a picture; do you begin to see the outlines of the atlas of your life when you think a little more about it? If you are only part-way down the trail, checking the atlas, you may still not be far from the turn in the road that will make all the difference for you. Up until a few months ago, even in my latter eighties, I thought I still had time to achieve the wonders I dreamed of. Now I am beginning to wonder if my strength will hold out. So you see, by comparison, the world you dream of still remains to be your own personal oyster, the one with the big shiny pearl.

An atlas is a map. It can be useful to trace the path one has taken, but it can also be useful as a planning tool, permitting us to design the trail we wish to take. In the latter sense, isn’t it worthwhile to give some thought to determining the path one wishes to take. And of course, it is useful to have some idea of the point at which one wishes to arrive.

It doesn’t hurt to have lofty goals. Why not dream big, while one is dreaming. Life has a habit of coming down hard on us if we dream wildly, but there is no limit to what determination and grit can allow us to accomplish. If we want hard enough, then try, try and trying again can find chinks for us in the armor of the future. We all know about those who became an overnight success after twenty years of trying and trying again.

So, isn’t it always a good idea to check where one is on the atlas of one’s life. It’s always a good idea to see where you are on the atlas; whether it’s time, maybe, for a course correction, or a change in the plan of attack. This could be unconscious, instinctive or an act of will. I wish I could say I offered a good example in this respect. I always responded to my gut. Whenever I could no longer stomach the situation I was in, or I saw what seemed like an opportunity I could not refuse myself, I would jump, even if it looked like I was jumping into a fire-storm. I always managed to come out relatively unscathed.

My atlas is the one I look back on rather than the one I designed and followed. There was a rough plan, but my life followed the atlas of my heart more than any plan.

All of us have our passions. Consciously, they are often what drives us in the directions we choose. They may be ambitions, or people, or causes, that capture our hearts. They may the motivations for our actions, but the element that may binds us to places we arrive at may be much different than the things that hold us in the places where we are. Don’t we all need that agonizing re-appraisal to determine whether we stay or go? Don’t we need some exercise of will in determining the traceries that our lives make on that atlas? Otherwise we are merely buffeted about by external forces without any personal control over our destiny. Can we live with that?

This is a message from a survivor. Those less fortunate are no longer present, or, will not be eager to engage in the conversation. Those still on the trail can, perhaps, usefully think about the propositions espoused, or continue happily on their way in the full confidence that they have everything well in hand.

Godspeed!