Now that we have explored the no, the wait, and the silent yes, there is one more truth quietly tugging at the edges of every life: the life you almost lived.

 

Do you ever sit and wonder what would have happened if you had gone right instead of left at a crossroad? If you had said yes instead of no, or no instead of yes? If you had stayed longer, left earlier, married differently, or remained exactly where you were planted? I think about this sometimes. More than I admit aloud. What if I had married someone else? What if I had stayed married? What if I had stuck to my initial career path, you know – the one that made so much sense on paper, and never branched out, never risked reinvention, never listened to that quiet tug in my chest that whispered, ‘Try this instead.’

Sometimes I sit with the ghost versions of my life; the alternate Sallys I could have become. The ones who took different risks, made different choices, loved different people, or refused to leave certain stories behind. If I am honest, there are days I mourn them, not because my life isn’t full — it is, not because I regret where I am — I don’t. It’s because the mind is an exquisite storyteller, capable of crafting perfection from the unknown. It can build fairy tales out of the fragments of ‘what might have been.’ It can romanticise the roads we didn’t take to the point where they shimmer. However, when I sit with myself more honestly, with a mature heart and a clearer gaze, I understand that every detour, every pivot, every risk — the brilliant ones, the reckless ones, the ones I am proud of and the ones I still wince about. They all shaped me. There are versions of me that had to die so the right one could live. There are decisions I made that led to heartbreak, but also led me home to myself. There are choices I made blindly that later revealed a wisdom I didn’t know I possessed. There are mistakes that turned out to be disguised blessings. There are delays that turned out to be protection. There are endings that felt catastrophic but were ultimately redirections. 

We like to pretend we are fully in control of our becoming, that destiny is something we sculpt with intention, affirmations, manifestations, strategies, and yes, to some degree, that is true. We can steer fate in one direction or another; we can choose our next step; we can choose the stories we enter and the ones we walk away from. But there is also something else moving. A subtler intelligence. A sacred timing. A pattern behind the pattern. There are certain roads you could have taken that would have looped you right back to where you were meant to be anyway, not because everything is pre-written, but because your deepest truths have a way of drawing you home, no matter how far you wander. And on that basis, if where you were ‘meant to be’ is not where you find yourself today, perhaps the truth is simpler: you were meant to outgrow that version of destiny, too. The life you almost lived is not a mistake. It is a mirror. A reminder of your possibility. It is, but a testament to the endless ways you could have unfolded. But it is not an indictment of the life you are living now. Because the life you are living now is the one your spirit chose each time it stepped forward instead of backwards, each time it listened inward instead of outward, each time it refused to settle or refused to shrink. The life you almost lived is simply an echo. The life you are living is the embodiment.

So yes…sometimes I sit and imagine what Sally would have been had I chosen differently. Sometimes I grieve the fairy tale my imagination creates out of the unknown. But more often now, I look at my present life with softer eyes. I see the method inside the madness. I see the coherence inside the chaos. I see the thread that was pulling me forward through every detour, every heartbreak, every leap. Call it intuition. Call it alignment. Call it grace. Something was shaping me even when I thought I was the one making all the decisions.

And so, the #Unshakable truth is this:

The life you almost lived is a beautiful story, but the life you are living is the one that was strong enough to hold you and brave enough to change you.

See you next week.

 

+ posts

IG Handle: @unshakable.is.a.state.of.mind