As a manufacturing engineer I became very familiar with the project-planning term “critical path“.
Today I realized that I’ve been living my life as though it were part of a critical path. This was immediately followed by the understanding that: it isn’t.
It’s just…… a path.
This morning the world mourns the loss of a great soul, Steve Jobs. I’ve just watched his commencement address at Stanford, which he gave in June, 2005. He talked about having dropped out of college and how that freed him to take classes he was really interested in, rather than ones that merely fulfilled requirements. One such class was on calligraphy, which had absolutely no apparent application to his life, but which he credits for giving him the knowledge and aesthetic sense that he used ten years later to design beauty into the typography on the MacIntosh. The story is a lead-in to this truth:
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 – because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
What dots can I draw today, so they will be there to connect to someday?
Here I am, at my new blog! My old one got too heavy.
Just like moving into a new home, or setting up a blank canvas to paint, the possibilities seem endlessly exciting. What link should I put here? Which picture will look great over there? It’s tempting to rush. But, like a pair of new shoes, I’m just going to wear it a while until it gets comfortable.
