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Expression: Walk in someone else’s footsteps
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Hello, and welcome to another week of posts here at ArtisanEnglish.jp.
Based on your perspective, walking in someone else’s footsteps could be the right thing to do or the easy way to get ahead.
I say this because when you follow in another person’s footsteps, you do the same thing as they did.
Historically, it had been relatively common for sons to grow up and take part in the same work as their fathers did.
Initially, I had wanted to become a carpenter/cabinet maker.
Unfortunately, there were no spaces available in the technical college, so I decided to walk in my father’s footsteps and become a sheet metal worker instead.
He wasn’t pleased about that because he thought I could do better, but he was flattered at the same time and eager to introduce me to his world.
This is where the lax part of following in someone’s footsteps comes in.
In many ways, it’s the easy thing to do. There’s no need to trailblaze; you do what they did and follow their lead.
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Why work harder if you don’t have to, right?
It’s an easy way to get your foot in the door and have all the regular challenges lessened to some degree.
With that said, I would never recommend anybody to work with or for their father.
My experience was very tough.
That’s one of the reasons why I eventually left sheet metal work behind and decided to blaze my own trail on the other side of Canada.
Now I find satisfaction in the fact that I did things my way.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you feel it’s better to walk in someone else’s footsteps or make your own way in life.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 72.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.