Real fulfillment comes when you live your unique story – not someone else’s path, and not what anyone else expected you to do.
Has your life been your choice so far?
Aaron Stull
2 weeks ago
What a great question, because it points straight at a real paradox. When you ask whether someone’s life has truly been their choice, you’re touching on free will, personality, upbringing, expectations, and the attitude a person brings to the world. And for me, the answer lives in the tension between both sides.
On one hand, I’ve always had an independent streak. Even as a kid, I didn’t like following others directions. I didn’t enjoy following instructions for the sake of compliance. I wasn’t afraid to try things on my own, even when the consequences were clear and the downside possible. I’ve had this contrarian edge for as long as I can remember. It is really an instinctive resistance to doing things simply because “everyone else does.” These traits feel innate and they pushed me toward leading, building, and thinking for myself.
And yet, my life didn’t begin on a blank canvas. I was born into a particular world, with its own gravitational pull. I’m a second-generation foundation repair contractor. I grew up in this trade and was doing the work as a kid. That environment shaped me, influenced me, and placed certain opportunities directly in my hands. Some of that had nothing to do with choice. It was circumstance, pure and simple.
So here’s the paradox…the path is absolutely mine… and it was also formed by the personality I didn’t choose and the circumstances I didn’t control.
I didn’t invent the road, but I’m the one who decided how to walk it. I took a legacy and made it my own. I reshaped the direction, the mission, and the purpose behind it. The roots weren’t optional, the growth was. And that’s the beauty of it. I believe my life is a product of both the unchangeable things I was born with and the choices I’ve made with them.
In the end, I didn’t escape my circumstances, I directed them, and that path feels authentically mine.
What a great question, because it points straight at a real paradox. When you ask whether someone’s life has truly been their choice, you’re touching on free will, personality, upbringing, expectations, and the attitude a person brings to the world. And for me, the answer lives in the tension between both sides.
On one hand, I’ve always had an independent streak. Even as a kid, I didn’t like following others directions. I didn’t enjoy following instructions for the sake of compliance. I wasn’t afraid to try things on my own, even when the consequences were clear and the downside possible. I’ve had this contrarian edge for as long as I can remember. It is really an instinctive resistance to doing things simply because “everyone else does.” These traits feel innate and they pushed me toward leading, building, and thinking for myself.
And yet, my life didn’t begin on a blank canvas. I was born into a particular world, with its own gravitational pull. I’m a second-generation foundation repair contractor. I grew up in this trade and was doing the work as a kid. That environment shaped me, influenced me, and placed certain opportunities directly in my hands. Some of that had nothing to do with choice. It was circumstance, pure and simple.
So here’s the paradox…the path is absolutely mine… and it was also formed by the personality I didn’t choose and the circumstances I didn’t control.
I didn’t invent the road, but I’m the one who decided how to walk it. I took a legacy and made it my own. I reshaped the direction, the mission, and the purpose behind it. The roots weren’t optional, the growth was. And that’s the beauty of it. I believe my life is a product of both the unchangeable things I was born with and the choices I’ve made with them.
In the end, I didn’t escape my circumstances, I directed them, and that path feels authentically mine.