There’s a moment most of us know intimately, even if we’ve never named it. Nothing dramatic has happened — you’re still doing the work, keeping the commitments, showing up. But somewhere underneath, a question has started to hum: is this still the direction?
That moment is a crossroads. Whether you’re weighing whether to stay or go in your career, crossing from one chapter of life into the next, or standing at the edge of work and whatever comes after it — the shape of the crossroads is the same. And how you meet it matters more than which way you eventually turn.
The shape of the crossroads
Stay with the image for a moment. A crossroads is literally a cross — and you are standing somewhere on it, with more options than the binary your mind keeps offering:
Straight ahead. But here’s a question worth sitting with: is straight ahead the same thing, or is it something different? We assume continuing means more of the same — yet the road ahead is still unwalked. Choosing to continue, with your eyes open, is not the same as drifting forward because you never noticed the junction.
Turning back. This one deserves more respect than we give it. Sometimes you took the wrong road years ago — for perfectly understandable reasons — and what you were actually meant to be doing is behind you, back at an earlier junction. You knew your purpose; you just turned away from it.
Psychology has a name for why we resist going back: the sunk cost fallacy. We keep walking a road that no longer fits, not because we believe in it, but because of how far we’ve come — losses feel heavier to us than gains, so retracing our steps feels like waste. It isn’t. Turning back towards something more purpose-driven isn’t retreat; it’s often the bravest choice on the whole crossroads.
Palliative-care research found the most common regret at the end of life was not having lived a life true to oneself — in other words, having stayed too long on someone else’s road.
Turning left or right. New direction — not better or worse, just the road you can’t yet see down.
Standing in the middle. The one nobody mentions. Stay at the centre long enough and you start going round in circles — the same options, the same arguments, motion mistaken for movement. If you’ve ever felt exhausted by a situation in which nothing is happening, you may be circling the centre of a crossroads.
And one more thing about “straight ahead into the future”: the future isn’t in the same place for everyone. The Aymara people of the Andes place the past in front of them — because it has been seen and is known — and the future behind, because it hasn’t.
So for them, turning back would be walking into the future. Where is your future? Ahead of you, behind you, off at a diagonal, above your head, beneath your feet? It genuinely differs from person to person — which is exactly why your crossroads is yours to map, not anyone else’s.
A crossroads is a choice point
Notice what a crossroads actually presents you with: not one question but five living options — ahead, back, left, right, or stillness. That makes it a choice point, and the language matters.
The word decide comes from the Latin de-caedere — to cut off. It shares its root with incision. A decision is surgical: it kills off the alternatives, which is why decisions can feel heavy and final. A choice is different. Choice belongs to values, desire, and intention — a selection made from who you are, not from pressure.
A decision asks which option survives? A choice asks who am I becoming, and which direction honours that? Most people at a crossroads try to decide before they’ve chosen — cutting away options while the deeper question is still unanswered — and that’s exactly what keeps them circling the middle.
Stand at the crossroads as a chooser, not a decider. See all five roads as genuinely open. Choose first, from your values. The deciding then follows almost effortlessly.
Let the metaphor do the work
In Clean Language — David Grove’s legacy — metaphor isn’t decoration; it’s the mechanism. When you find your own metaphor for where you are, it can become psychoactive: you don’t just describe your situation, you inhabit it. Within the metaphor you can walk a few steps down each road and experience the change before the change takes place. Your mind and body arrive somewhere before your life does.
So try it, gently. Close your eyes and place yourself at your crossroads. What kind of crossroads is it? What’s the weather? And which direction does your body lean, before your mind has a chance to argue?
What becomes possible
I know this territory from the inside. My own crossroads took me from a corporate career at Oracle into a life of teaching yoga and guiding others — and from the middle of the junction, the new road looked improbable at best. The road reveals itself only once you’re walking it.
And here’s something striking: when people approaching life’s later crossings — from full-time work towards part-time, from career towards whatever comes next — are asked what they truly want, the answers are rarely about plans or pensions. Again and again, what surfaces is the wish for a fulfilled life, a balanced life, a joyful one — to be focused, finally, on what matters.
Those aren’t destinations — they’re qualities of travel. Which suggests the real question at any crossroads isn’t only which road? but how do I want to travel it? Choose the quality first, and the direction has a way of becoming clear.
So — what if your crossroads isn’t a problem to solve, but an invitation? Stand still, just for a moment, with real attention. Then choose. The deciding will take care of itself.
If you’re at a crossroads of your own and would like a companion for the middle of the junction I’d love to hear what kind of crossroads yours is.