Infinite Dots

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.” – Steve Jobs

Here’s the best reason to do whatever you feel you have to do in today‘s world, without worrying about the consequences: today’s dots are infinite.

Fifty years ago, one of the strongest arguments to keep people on the safe path was predictability. It wasn’t that hard to foresee how many possibilities a person would have depending on what they studied, where they lived and which people they knew. This happened because the variables that influenced someone’s future (let’s call them “dots”) were very few. Money, heritage, and geography mattered. You could still challenge traditional paths, but the tools and reach were limited. Changing the world fifty years ago was harder than it is today, simple as that.

If you looked back and tried to connect the dots back then, the unpredictable ones were fewer. A linear path was easy to walk.

Now, the world is flat, globalization is happening and the internet is shortening the distance between each other. When the world truly is your oyster, every aspect of your life will get affected (and probably improved) if you decide to step out of your traditional boundaries. Thanks to today’s connectivity and the increasingly popular “world citizenship” mentality, the magnetism of people’s desires can bring them together fast and easy.

The process of dot connecting does not have to be hard, but it has to be consistent. With every little challenging step that you take now, you are opening the door to countless new opportunities. There are enough dots for everyone to reach an interesting life, but you have to keep opening doors.

You need to be strong, independent, and aware that you can’t know how things will work out. If you can see the outcome clearly, rest assured that you’re going after a boring and mediocre lifestyle. If you are trying to “make sense”, then you are going after other people’s definition of “sense.”

Lives full of exciting dots don’t make sense.