To paths not taken…
It was a quick line on TV. The high-level police having solved a particularly heinous case are reflecting over some tumblers of beverage,
One of them turns wistfully to his colleague and asks.
‘So George… if you hadn’t been a detective what would you have been?’ George replies “I come from an Italian heritage and I would have set up my little Italian restaurant using Mama’s recipes with lashings of Chianti, garlic and pizza.”
A few others reminisce and ponder… Run a Hotel, become a surgeon… a child care worker. There is much bonhomie, more beverage and a percolation of thoughts.
Someone makes the salient point that if any one of them had pursued these other paths, then they would not have met, friendships would not have been formed and to push the envelope out.. Then it might be that the recently captured felon would still be out there committing monstrous crimes and slaying people.
When I was quite young I had aspired to be a doctor. Nothing fancy like a specialist or epidemiologist, just your average, coughs and colds GP. I’m not sure what happened; perhaps I realised early on that I did not have the academic prowess to accomplish this noble profession.
The flip side is also true. That if I had become your white-coated, stethoscope-slinging GP, I would not be writing this post. I would not have broken bread, celebrated weddings, sent souls on their way and thrilled in the baptisms of the quite young and somewhat more mature. I would not have met so many amazing people including you.
The folk on the TV raise and chink their glasses. ‘To paths not taken!’ I join them in this toast, swiftly and with joy. ‘To paths not taken.’