The Path Of Least Resistance

Sarah Thomas
4 min readAug 18, 2022
Photo by Ashley Knedler on Unsplash

One of many pieces of wisdom I picked up in my time learning the storytelling craft in a Scott Myers online class was the idea of choosing the path of least resistance. The course was on screenwriting, and the notion was that you could do yourself a big favour by choosing the path to have your film made with the fewest obstacles.

So, for example, if you’re a first-time writer, your way of least resistance probably involves keeping your script helicopter free. Of course, you could also do yourself a big favour by creating a good story.

The idea keeps popping up in my life; as I read stories of others and look at my life; writing, business, and work. It has a nice ring to it — the path of least resistance and gives a binary perspective to the projects, work and conversations you take on.

What is the path of least resistance to a life well lived? What is a life of maximum resistance? What is resistance? Is it possible to capture it at the moment, or is it only recognised retrospectively?

I’m on a journey to find out.

Last week I saw a Linked In post about a blog written by a palliative nurse in Australia who recorded the top five regrets she heard from her patients as they were dying. You can read the full blog from Truth Theory here, but below are the top two:

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Sarah Thomas

Storyteller, ex playwright (produced), award winning screenwriter, always writing. Creating story-based content for businesses. Based in Aberdeen.