Two events happened on the same day and threw each other into sharp relief.

The first event was a walk with my childhood friend around the lake in our hometown. My friend said that she worried constantly about finding the ‘real’ thing she was meant to be doing. She said that even though she knows the path to happiness is just choosing something, anything, and doing it, that no matter how hard she tries she can’t help but worry that she’s making the wrong choice. She said just as an example, sometimes she thinks about constructing a home composting bin for her backyard. She said she even bought the 2x4s to build it, and found instructions to follow online. I said that seemed relatively low-stakes but that I knew what she was driving at. She said that she is paralyzed by the thought of starting the compost bin, by the idea that anything she chooses to do with her time naturally shuts down other avenues, other possibilities, and she worries that she’s choosing incorrectly and has gotten her life onto the wrong track.

Later that night I went to a small wedding, the first wedding I had ever attended. The bride was another childhood friend, such an old friend that as I reflected on the many years I had known her, I realized I had forgotten most of the things that had happened to us. As I sat at a table in the back of the room I remembered some sad things that had happened to us, as well as some happy things. I remembered sitting across a table from my friend as I told her I was moving to another city, and watching her burst into tears. I had been shocked because it was a time in my life at which I didn’t think anyone cared about me. At the wedding I sat in my assigned seat and watched the evening unfold, and I felt completely content with my role as a spectator. It was a pleasure just to see a room full of happy people, especially the young people in the bridal party, most of whom had either just gotten married or who were getting married in the next few months. These, I thought, were people who did not walk in circles around the lake fretting about the possibility of making the wrong choice.