The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life (The Pathless Path Collection Book 1)

by Paul Millerd

The pathless path is an alternative to the default path. It is an embrace of uncertainty and discomfort. It’s a call to adventure in a world that tells us to conform.

You work hard, but get laid off anyway. You have the perfect life on paper, but no time to enjoy it.

that most people, including myself, have a deep desire to work on things that matter to them and bring forth what is inside them. It is only when we cling to the logic of the default path that we fail to see the possibilities for making that happen.

This means that for many people, expectations of life are centered around a small number of positive events that occur while we are young. Much of the rest of our lives remains unscripted and when people face inevitable setbacks, they are left without instructions on how to think or feel.

He argues there are two typical ways this happens. One is the “way of loss,” when things that matter are taken from us, such as loved ones, our health, or a job. The other path is the “way of wonderment,” when we are faced with moments of undeniable awe and inspiration.

What was I living for? What did I really want? How did I want to look back on my life when it was my time to go?

that many people who face crises often experience “post-traumatic growth” and that this manifests as an “appreciation for life in general, more meaningful interpersonal relationships, an increased sense of personal strength, changed priorities, and a richer existential and spiritual life.”

In Weber’s view, a “traditionalist” view of work is one where people work as much as they need to maintain their current lifestyle, and once that aim is achieved, they stop working.

The lesson is clear: work is a duty. However, it was still in a limited sense.

Religious scholars point out that the Protestant “work ethic” is more than a blind obsession with work. It is paired with thrift, self-discipline, and humility. Yet as fewer people look to religion for wisdom on how to navigate life, they are only left with the watered‑down version of these views.

The educated, hardworking masses are still doing what they’re told, but they’re no longer getting what they deserve. – Seth Godin

Sociologist André Gorz spent the latter half of the 20th century writing about the role of work in society. He argued that many countries had evolved into places where the primary way one gained “membership” in society was through formal work. He called these places “wage-based societies” where the central ethic was, “never mind what work you do, what counts is having a job.“

“How do you design a life that doesn’t put work first?” The answer, my dear reader, is simple. You start underachieving at work.

You take a last stand, doubling down on the existing path despite all evidence that it is no longer working.

These questions inspired an idea: what if I paired making less with working less?

It was “a condition of the soul,” and the “disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion – in the real.”57

This kind of approach, focused not on being brave, but instead on eliminating risk, is common for people who take unconventional paths. I

Callard defines aspiration as the slow process of “trying on the values that we hope one day to possess.”69 This is in contrast to an ambitious journey where we already know what we value.

The consistent financial rewards helped me live a smooth existence, needing to rely less on others the more I succeeded. In some circles, this is celebrated as the ultimate aim of life, but for me it led to a certain emptiness that I didn’t fully understand until I found myself on a path that forced me to find the others.

In hundreds of conversations with people, I’ve found that these fears fall into one of the following five areas: Success: “What if I’m not good enough?” Money: “What happens if I go broke?” Health: “What if I get sick?” Belonging: “Will I still be loved?” Happiness: “What if I am not happy?”

Belief clings, but faith lets go. – Alan Watts

With more possibilities to work independently and become an entrepreneur, I’m here to tell you to take your own doubts seriously and demand better! It is no longer true that to succeed, you need to hack bad tests.

Early on, it was clear that if I continued to share over a long enough period of time, it might radically improve my life. As I’m writing this book, I can say without a doubt that my hunch was correct.

Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough? – Derek Sivers

For me, some of my favorite questions include: What matters? Why do we work? What is the “good life”? What holds people back from change? How do we find work that brings us alive?

It’s to actively and consciously search for the work that you want to keep doing.

You are not creative. At least this is what you tell me. But I don’t buy it. I just think you’ve been duped. We’ve lost track of our basic human creativity, convincing ourselves that only people who use certain tools or work in advertising or other artistic areas are creative.

Host a dinner party in your city or town, start a book club, share a poem or essay you’ve written with a couple of close friends, or even join a local art class. It doesn’t matter how you start but that you start.

“critical thinking without hope is cynicism. But hope without critical thinking is naïveté.”

This is possible on the pathless path. You can experiment with your work and your life until you stumble into a virtuous cycle that helps you continue to move in a positive direction.

One of the goals of the pathless path is to make commitments: to a type of work, ways of living, creative projects, or a “conversation” with the world.

In this way, the creative act is one of the most sacred things in the world and should be taken seriously in itself and not with any expected outcome.

I embraced three guiding principles: Find ways to give without expectation of anything in return. Be willing to receive gifts in any form and on any timeline. Be open to being wrong about all of this and adjust my approach as necessary.

thinking about generosity as a skill and looking for opportunities to practice is important.

If the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.

Creativity is a real path to optimism, meaning, and connection.