Sacrifice - I Have No Idea How I Got Here!

Every time you make a choice, you sacrifice every other path you could have taken.

For twenty years, people sat down in front of me and said a version of the same sentence. I have no idea how I got here. I don't know how my life turned out this way.

Nobody arrives there in one decision. They get there through a long run of small ones, each made for belonging or safety or love, each one moving them a little further from the life they would have chosen with a clear head. I call that an incoherent sacrifice. You made the trade without seeing it, to feed a part of you that wanted to be accepted.

Here's the part most people miss. You sacrifice either way. Every choice closes every other path available to you. The only question is whether you are choosing consciously, from your own ground, or unconsciously, from lack. Do it consciously for long enough and you build the next version of yourself on purpose. Then you don't get ten or twenty years down the line asking how you ended up here. You know exactly how. You chose it.

The work this comes from is built and finished. I spent twenty years in practice, and then several more putting all of it in one place. My job now is to keep the door to it open. The first part is free.

Michael Lauria practised as a therapist for twenty years. He is the custodian of the work.