What If You Don’t Need the Whole Plan?

We ask remarkably large questions about relatively small decisions: Where will this lead? Is this the right direction? How does this fit with everything else? What if I invest time in it and nothing comes of it? What if I change my mind?

We want to know the destination before deciding whether to take the first step, which would be extremely convenient. Unfortunately, some of the most consequential things in our lives don't become consequential until after we've begun them.

Sometimes coherence appears afterward. Not before.

The retrospective version of a life

Tell the story of your life today and it probably contains connections.

This led to that. I met this person, who introduced me to that person. I took that job and learned something I later used here. I read a book that changed how I thought about something else. I became interested in a subject that eventually became central to my work.

Looking backward, we can arrange these events into something resembling a path, but that's not necessarily how they felt while we were living them. At the time, the conversation may have been just a conversation. The job may have been something you took because you needed the money. The class may have sounded interesting. The friendship had no strategic objective whatsoever. The significance came later.

Hindsight is an excellent editor

We tell stories by selecting.

Out of thousands of conversations, experiences, mistakes, relationships and ordinary Tuesdays, we identify the events that seem relevant to who we've become. Then we connect them. That's not dishonest. It's one of the ways human beings create coherence.

But it can produce an illusion. Looking backward, a life can appear much more intentional than it actually was. We forget how much we didn't know. We forget the abandoned directions. We forget the interests that led nowhere. We forget how often we chose without knowing what would happen next. And then we look at the future and expect ourselves to see the same coherent path going forward.

We can't. The retrospective pattern contains information that wasn't available prospectively.

Not every thread leads somewhere

I like the metaphor of following threads. A conversation catches your interest. You read something. That leads to another question. You meet someone. You try something.

But I want to be careful with the metaphor. Not every thread is leading you toward your destiny. Some threads go nowhere. Some become less interesting once you follow them. Some teach you that you don't want what you thought you wanted. Some are enjoyable for a while and then simply end. That doesn't necessarily make following them a mistake.

We tend to evaluate exploration by what it eventually produces, but sometimes discovering this isn't for me is a perfectly useful outcome.

The demand for certainty

There are decisions for which careful planning is essential.

Leaving a job without financial resources is different from taking a Saturday class. Moving countries is different from reading a book about one. Starting a company is different from having coffee with someone who has. The size and reversibility of the decision matter, but we don't always make those distinctions.

Sometimes we apply the standards appropriate to a major commitment to the smallest exploratory step. Before taking the class, we need to know whether we're serious about the subject. Before having the conversation, we need to know what might come from it. Before experimenting, we want evidence that the experiment will be worthwhile.

We require certainty at precisely the stage when we're trying to gather information.

Make the question smaller

Instead of: Is this the right path? try: Am I interested enough to take one more step?

Instead of: Could I make a career of this? perhaps: Would I like to learn more about it?

Instead of: Should I move to France? perhaps: What would I need to know to take that possibility seriously?

A smaller question doesn't trivialize a large decision. It gives you a way to approach it without pretending you already possess information you can only acquire through exploration. One step can generate information for the next one. And sometimes that's all the plan we actually need.

The pattern isn't waiting to be discovered

This may be the part that interests me most.

We often talk about “finding” the pattern in our lives as though it has been there all along, waiting for us to uncover it. I'm not sure that's what happens.

Perhaps we participate in creating the pattern by deciding which experiences matter, which connections we retain and which possibilities we continue to follow. Meaning isn't necessarily sitting at the end of the thread. We make meaning from what happens while we're holding it.

Years later, we may look back and see a surprisingly coherent design. That doesn't mean the design existed before we lived it. It means we can see something from here that wasn't visible from there.

You don't need the map

Perhaps life is less like following a predetermined map and more like gradually learning the terrain.

You need enough information for consequential decisions. You need judgment. You need to understand risk. But you don't necessarily need to know where every curiosity, conversation or experiment will lead before allowing yourself to pursue it.

Some things can be explored simply because they are interesting enough for one more step. The pattern—if there is one—can wait.