gauging distances

It's been 3 months in the new job, 2 months since I've turned 25, and a week when I talked to Joms about my Japanese separation anxiety. Anyway I look at it, I've found the first of many crossroads in my life. One life-changing decision must be made here, in the perpetually shifting landscape I tread on. I'm going to slow down a bit and catch my breath, and gaze a bit into the distance and remember where was I heading again.

Where is everyone heading again? I hung out with some old buddies last Saturday in their mercifully air-conditioned room(though he didn't turn it on) and asked the question, "What are you dreaming about lately?" One of my friends was set. He rested his head against the bed and stared at the ceiling saying he's dreamt the same way he's been dreaming as a kid. From his bookshelf, we checked our gradeschool yearbook and confirmed it, word for word.

My other buddy had a strange twinkle in his eye and I asked him his piece. He said he didn't know with a shrug, and that they've been fussing about it, his girlfriend and him, for a while now. The yearbook, upon consultation, spouted "To be an engineer." That's kinda vague, we all agreed.

So I went on an extended process of finding where this man's compass points: "If you were about to die, how would you complete this sentence: 'I wish I had more time left to...'?", "What thing could you do that, once done, you can say you can die happily?", "What task must be completed for you to say you've had 'a fulfilling life'?"

He didn't know, and my other friend said it was alright. I couldn't help myself and said, "It's not wrong, but it's a symptom of something wrong." It was uncalled for, I realize now. People each have their own paces, in the same way they have their own paths, to take. I guess my friend was taking his time with his. He's the more solemn and patient type among us friends. I was pushing him for an answer because I wanted to find my own, hoping his decision will yield a clue about mine.

I can't help pushing myself harder. A writer I follow, Micheal McAllister, summed up my emotions perfectly:

"Most of the time I worry. I live in tomorrow... I struggle with impatience, full of ambition and thwarted by doubt. I think that I should have met all of my goals by the age of 25. And now I am 39."

I've got to act, act, act. A war-song of action plays in a loop inside my head. The music I've started picking fit the part of a movie when the main character is doing something lengthy and important, the scene where no one talks and we just see multiple shots of the protagonist in varied states of progress on the plot-defining task. The seasons shift swiftly behind him. Summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. Happy ending.

I know I'm heading towards a happy ending, I'm just not sure which ending it should be just yet. The crossroads I've encountered before branch-out in straight lines and I'm used to sneaking a peak from the junction how well life could be down the left fork and down the right, I also peak in advance when reading 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books.

But for the first time, I can't see that far. And in these instances, I judge by picking the path that I'd regret least. This works great in situations where I don't feel like braving weather and traffic to meet friends somewhere. Or, when I need to try something for the first time. Especially applicable, when I have to do something health related.

But now I've come to doubt that measure. Regret is such a vague concept, too. It's just an awful feeling we feel when we compare how much less we have now from how much more we would've. The regret of fun missed and sleep lost are easily weighed. But when we talk about regret cultivated after years lost and relationships compromised, how do you pick?

I'm taking a different take on this one. Maybe regret is just the effort it takes to walk back to the junction. The distance and time lost by going back to the start, picking up on a new trail, and trying again.

In that case, how much effort does it take to rebuild a dream? How much work must be spent to rescue a relationship?