You are on a long journey and you finally reach your destination. Now what, now that you have arrived? Should you continue?

You’ve planned this adventure for a long time. Weeks or months; maybe most of your life.

You might have finished that graduate degree, or moved to a new town (or both). Perhaps you conquered the Pacific Crest Trail, or built a business from scratch. The planning and sacrifice paid off; you successfully navigated the woes and wins. You made it, after all that.

Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all. You could have one day had enough and just jumped in the car; some of the best journeys start like that.

Maybe you got sober or got healthy (or both); got evicted or got rich, or on a whim, simply hiked to the top of that mountain you have always wondered about.

It doesn’t matter.

Life is not linear. We progress in spasms of volatility, more saw-tooth than smooth incline.

If we are lucky enough to experience both kinds of luck, we will—inevitably and reiteratively—say the words that best characterize an adventurous life, well-lived:

“Now, what?”

I have spoken that phrase from the CEO’s office, cloaked in grinning satisfaction and Italian suit. I have muttered those words from a park bench, head in hands, moist eyes downcast.

In every case, those words, whether spoken or merely thought and no matter how they feel, mean the same: You have arrived.

Sometimes you arrive by means of careful consideration, a brilliant course plotted across vast and dangerous terrain.

Many times, your trajectory is determined by tragedy; a flight into the best of several bad options.

You feel as though you have a decision to make, when you arrive.

Is this a period in a longer paragraph, or the Finis at the end of the work?

But fret not, dear reader: In all but the moribund case, in extremis, your decision is moot. 

Because life goes on.

You need only decide how to conduct yours.

I have but two pieces of advice as to how you should continue. The first is born of decades of lived experience and a lifetime of careful inquiry, both scientific and philosophical:

Be yourself. Not a rehashed version of someone else’s thoughts and mandates and reasoning, but as a result of conscious determination of who you are.

What do you truly believe? As you grow, how have your beliefs and knowledge and reasoning changed? “Who you are” is not a static determination.

Think from your own place in the world, in the cosmos. Use everything you have learned to date, and synthesize it into a manifesto of where you stand, and for what.

Employ your best critical thinking to cut through the hype and fear mongering and manipulation and make your decisions from the locus of things within your control.

Then, having established your self in the absence of manipulation and expectation, double down on what makes you different.

What do you have to contribute that is unique? What makes you authentically you?

What can you create like no one else? How can you move in the world and inspire and give hope in a way unlike everyone else?

How can you love and heal and connect, if you are so inclined, in a way that is truly authentic?

Determine this carefully and then act on it fully.

And be ready for it to change, as it will. And when it does, be sure your new direction is again your own. Don’t let anything or anyone pull you into their dialogue and out of your quirky realness.

My second piece of advice relates to the opinions, disdain, praise, approval, cancellation and advice from others (including me!).

Be prepared, as it is highly technical, formulated from years of research into complex neuropsychological states and biochemical processes.

In light of my multiple degrees, scholarly pursuits and work with thousands of people of all ages and in all situations, here is my best, peer-reviewed journal-level counsel as regards the judgement of friends, family, influencers and the world at large in the way they would manipulate your decisions:

Fuck ‘em.

Do what you think you should do and be whom you think you should be.

The only thing that makes you you is your difference from everyone else. As I have said in many places for many years: Be yourself—everyone else is already taken.

And don’t be afraid! As has been famously said, “No one here gets out alive.”

At the end of your life, no matter how long that is, you will not be remembered for how well you imitated someone else. Your legacy will be measured in terms of what you gave that was unlike anyone else; what you contributed that only you could have created.

None of this is to tell you what your path should be. If you decide your true, unadulterated calling is to play guitar by a river, then do that. My words here are only intended to remind you that you needn’t play by anyone else's rules.

As always, I am rooting for you:

Protect your peace.

Pursue your purpose.

Create your world.



My novel, The Calling is now available in print and as an eBook!

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- JWW