Take a look at that spiral. What do you notice about it? Most notably, it gets wider toward the top. This is consistent with the life path I’m on: I’ve found that the higher I climb in the spiral, the more opportunities open up. Learning new things, meeting people with similar interests, continuously improving at a variety of skills, and getting better at integrating all of this has lead me to some wonderful things. I could see some of these things and envision many more of them long before I started spiraling up, and it’s exciting to finally be experiencing them as I go.
Of course, this is looking at the spiral from one point of view. Looking at it another way, the spiral gets narrower as you go toward the bottom. I was once on a different life path that was taking me down into the spiral. Fortunately I didn’t go as low as I could have, but I would have eventually gotten there if I had kept going down that path. There are fewer opportunities down there, which makes it a lot harder for those close to the bottom to get out, and it’s much harder to stay motivated because not much light is visible down there. It’s also easier to spiral down because spiraling up takes repeated effort and practice at things that will build you up, while spiraling down requires none of that. This causes someone spiraling down to get tossed around like a ship adrift at sea. Without a bigger purpose or plan, it becomes almost impossible to not lose all sense of meaning in life and become hopeless.
Both spiraling up and spiraling down can start with small, seemingly insignificant actions. One bad decision usually isn’t enough to ruin your life, however, just as one good decision is unlikely to catapult you to the top. But it still pays to make good decisions and avoid bad ones as often as possible. Whatever types of decisions you most commonly make become habits and ultimately pave your life path, and that determines whether you spiral up or spiral down. Having been on both types of paths, I highly recommend spiraling up. I started spiraling up by making a few simple decisions: cleaning my room, reading every day, and meditating regularly. Those got me onto my current life path and pointed me toward all kinds of incredible opportunities. It’s only gotten easier to make good decisions and develop solid routines since then, and if this strategy can work for me, it can work for anyone.