Once you start on the path, it's forever

I read the above in a novel last night -- or words to that effect.  I have that sense as well.  But I think there's even more to it than that.  When one is meant to be on the path -- when it's what one was born for -- when one finds a way to follow it, it's like finding home. But even if one doesn't start, if it's what one was meant to do, one cannot be happy until that destiny is fulfilled.  I can't prove this is true -- it's just my sense.  And I wish I had come to it sooner.  In the past, when I lost my first teacher, there seemed to be no way forward, and so I just tried to live the way everyone else did.  If someone had said to me, "You can't.  Your destiny is different," maybe it would have made a difference.  Not that there is something wrong with what others are doing, but it was wrong for me.  All's well that ends well, of course, but it would have been wonderful to know sooner that there was no choice in the matter..