Find your own way

I can go anyway, way I choose
I can live anyhow, win or lose
I can go anywhere, for something new
Anyway, anyhow, anywhere I choose.

- Daltrey/Townshend

(Image by Pexels)

When I first moved to Atlanta a million years ago, I used to get lost on purpose.

This was the pre-smartphone era. I actually had a paper city map that I would use to find my destination, scribbling the turn-by-turn directions down on the back of an envelope the way we used to do in the olden days. 

I would make my way to my destination using the map, and then I would find my home without it. Sometimes this led to trafficky adventures in unsavory neighborhoods, but I always figured it out eventually.

Sometimes I would think to myself, “What if this isn’t the right road? I’ve been on it too long. I should check the map.” And then I would hold out a little longer. My favorite moment was when, shortly after this moment of self-doubt, I would inevitably find myself in a familiar location and know that I had made it. I was on the home stretch.

As the world moved on to turn-by-turn directions printed out from the Internet, I kept up this practice. These days, I have a smartphone that tells me exactly where I’m going, but I still, whenever possible, try to find my way home on my own.

Following directions is an important and underrated skill, sure. Map reading is, too — and perhaps a bit of a dying art. But you know where I’m going with this: Powerful, memorable (and sometimes uncomfortable) learning can happen when we eschew our maps and directions and figure stuff out on our own.

When we aren’t sure exactly what we’re supposed to do, there is room for experimentation. We can approach the world like scientists, making hypotheses and continually adjusting our understanding based on new data we gather. We build a mental map as we try various possibilities.

Yesterday, I messed up big time on a hat I was knitting. I fixed all of the little mistakes as I went along, only to discover that I had made a major error in the pattern. To go back and fix the error would have meant ripping out 30 rows and would have cost a few hours — I just couldn’t stomach that. 

Thus, I found myself in a distinct “find your own way home” moment: How could I adjust the remainder of the pattern to create a normal-looking hat instead of a weird stocking cap? How could I make it look like the error was a deliberate part of the design instead of a cautionary tale about knitting while watching Netflix?

I added some rows to the pattern here and subtracted others there, tweaked this and adjusted that. In the end, unbelievably, it worked out. But even if it hadn’t, I would have gathered some useful data (perhaps grumbling all the while). 

It’s important to be able to ask for help. And it’s highly beneficial to use the resources that are out there to make things happen. Not everything needs to be grueling. But we should also realize how resourceful we can be if we make space for it.

Further, when we allow ourselves to do things “the wrong way” just to see what will happen, we become more resourceful. When we make mistakes or mess things up on purpose, we accelerate our learning and gain greater confidence in our ability. Instead of a sheet of turn-by-turn directions along safe, familiar roads, we end up with the whole map in our minds. This makes us flexible and adaptable, allowing us to take even greater risks that strengthen our problem-solving skills in a virtuous cycle.

From navigation to cooking to art to work, there are lots of situations in which we can depart from the established path and play around with possibilities. How will you venture into the unknown today?