Building vs. Finding
“How successful people…”
“10 ways to…”
“The ultimate guide to…”
“Why most people never…”
Your path to success isn’t my path. My trail to happiness isn’t yours. It’s time to remove the bullshit that is a one-way ticket to paradise.
I spend a lot of time reading about ways to overcome depression. I read a lot about ways to be successful. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time depressed and feeling rather unsuccessful. Today, the reason for this finally dawned on me — I’ve been using these articles as instruction manuals rather than maps.
An instruction manual doesn’t leave room for exploration. There’s a way to put something together, and in the end you have a useful product. The problem when using this approach with humans is that we’re like 7 billion different products. We need more manuals. Or, a map.
A map encourages adventure. It allows you to explore different routes and find one that suits you. You want to get there fast? Take the interstate. Want to see cool scenery? Take the back roads. There are many ways to get there from here, and you can even switch routes in the middle of the journey.
Choose a destination, pick a route and allow yourself the freedom to switch things up along the way. You might find the path is different from that one article you read, but you might see similar terrain while ending at the same place. If the destination is what matters, I don’t think the road that takes you there matters at all.
