Compass

I’ve been thinking a lot (recently especially) about having a map and having a compass.

A map assumes you know where you’re going. There is a destination, a route, some idea of what comes next. A compass has much less certainty. You just need enough awareness to know which direction is pulling you.

I think we’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have maps.

What are you doing next? Where are you going? What do you want to be? What’s the plan?

And there is nothing wrong with having a plan. But I’m starting to think that sometimes, the obsession with knowing exactly where we’re going makes us less aware of everything trying to move us somewhere else.

RULE OUT EXPECTATIONS and rule in movement. because movement creates information.

You can sit somewhere for months trying to think your way into clarity, or you can move. Go somewhere. Take the meeting. Try the thing. Talk to the person. Follow the strange interest that keeps resurfacing. Say yes to something without immediately needing to understand what it will become.

And pay attention.

“I liked that.” “I hated that.” “I want more of this.” “I never want to do that again.”

You suddenly know more about yourself than you did before. That is why, despite my extremely curious nature, I have become even more interested in curiosity as a way of making decisions. When I don’t know what the “right” thing to do is, maybe the better question is simply - “What am I curious about?”

Not everything that interests you needs to become productive. It doesn’t need to make money, fit your career, strengthen your identity, make cohesive sense on paper.

Sometimes the little pull toward a person, place, subject, idea, project, or completely random invitation is enough reason to investigate it.

but you have to be present in yourself and intuition to notice these pulls in the first place. Opportunities rarely introduce themselves as life changing. They look like a conversation, an invitation you almost decline, someone you happen to meet, a trip, project, something you keep returning to.

You require participation. Follow a thought, answer a message, leave the house, have a conversation.

This doesn’t mean abandoning ambition or floating around waiting for the universe to decide everything for you. I still want direction, I still want discipline. I still want to move intentionally.

Being intentional DOES NOT require you to know the outcome. You can be over ambitious without over engineering your future. You can change direction without deciding the previous was a mistake.

Maybe we built our lives less through perfect decisions and more through hundreds of small movements.

So

Right now

I am trying to ask myself less of What is my exact plan, and more What is pulling me forward?

You don’t always need a map. Sometimes you just need the compass. Moving with awareness, an open mind, tuned to invitation. Rule out expectations, rule in movement through curiosity.