tumble table

Kareem Mayan's Weblog: Trust Yourself to Connect the Dots

Originally posted July 15 to the Find Your Life Purpose newsletter.

—-

I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED talk [1] on revolutionizing education tonight over dinner. It’s brilliant.

Sir Ken’s contention is that we, as a society, obsess over a linear narrative of our lives: go to school, go…

Full text:

Trust Yourself to Connect the Dots

Originally posted July 15 to the Find Your Life Purpose newsletter.

I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED talk [1] on revolutionizing education tonight over dinner. It’s brilliant.

Sir Ken’s contention is that we, as a society, obsess over a linear narrative of our lives: go to school, go to university, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire, see the world in your golden years, etc.

The problem is that our lives unfold organically, not linearly.

Steve Jobs talks about this in his Stanford commencement speech [2]. He calls it “connecting the dots”. He dropped out of college after 6 months, and hung around for 18 months afterwards. He was poor, returning coke bottles for the 5c deposits, walking 7 miles on Sunday nights for one good meal, and sleeping on friends’ floors. But he loved it, because he was able to explore his interests.

Jobs talks about randomly dropping in on a calligraphy class at the college, which had one of the best calligraphy programs in the world. He learned the ins and outs of typography, just because he was curious. Those typography lessons came to bear 10 years later when he and Steve Wozniak designed the first Mac computer.

Here’s the lesson from the horse’s mouth:

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class. And personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

If you accept that our lives evolve organically, and trust that you will be able to look back and connect the dots, it frees you.

It frees you to think about moving from a linear path that no longer serves you, to one that does.

It frees you from the responsibility of telling yourself today what your life will look like 40 years from now (whatever you tell yourself today is, unfortunately, a fairy tale.)

And it frees you to explore your passions in a playful way, with no expectation of outcomes. You’re doing it because it’s fun and engaging.

So ask yourself: am I willing to trust that I’ll be able to connect the dots when I look back? That the passions I’ve explored and will explore will make sense in the narrative of my life?

I’ll leave you with the sage words of 24 year old Charlie Hoehn[3], who says:

“[Herein] lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you.”

Doing things that meaningfully engage you on a regular basis is the first step in finding your life purpose.

Please do more of those things.

And: trust yourself.

—-

1. Sir Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

2. Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

3. Charlie Hoehn:
http://charliehoehn.com/2009/08/29/thoughts-on-tour/

—-

Source: kareem