connecting the dots

the constellation of our life

I’ve mainly been reading biographies these days.

I originally hoped that this departure from my standard literary diet of non-fiction psychology books (or “self-help” as my friends like to call it) would be entertaining and interesting enough to reinvigorate my (recently waning) love for reading.

I expected that the arcs towards success (in the lives of those biographed) would be obvious.

That each step would be a carefully choreographed movement in their respective dances towards greatness.

Well.

I was wrong.

And as someone who (so far) has lived a life that is not obviously arcing toward greatness, I’ve found (a non-trivial amount of) solace in that.

For example, I had assumed Benjamin Franklin’s life consisted of a slow and steady march towards notoriety as an eminent tinkerer and the essential American patriot.

And that Steve Jobs consistently chipped away at cementing his name as one of the most iconic founders in history.

And that Stephen King spent his entire adult life churning out hit novel after hit novel en route to becoming recognized as one of the most prolific writers of his generation.

But apparently, life doesn’t work like that.

Before Benjamin Franklin was a revered diplomat, he spent most of his time in the printing and postal businesses. And only a few years before he signed his name on the Declaration of Independence (and later the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution), he was known more widely as a traitor than a conciliator (in both America and Britain).

Before Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple, he was a college dropout, hitchhiking across India, and upon return to the Bay Area, a night-shift technician at the video game maker Atari. And only a few years before the iMac sold 6 million units (making it the best-selling computer to date), Jobs was running two failing companies that he had put almost all of his life’s savings into. And this, of course, was all only a few years after he got ousted from Apple — the company he had founded less than a decade earlier.

Before Stephen King filled bookstore shelves with his best-selling novels, he was a high school English teacher making $6k a year, writing at nights in his trailer home in Maine. And only a few months before he got his first book deal for Carrie (worth $400k — the equivalent of 67 more years spent at his teaching job), the first draft of Carrie was sitting in the garbage. King’s wife happened to stumble upon it, dust off the cigarette ashes, and encourage him to give it another go.

Sure, there’s luck involved in all of these stories.

But as Picasso (allegedly) said, “luck will find you, but it has to find you working.”

Greatness is not inevitable. But it also isn’t random.

For every Stephen King, there are surely thousands of aspiring writers who are still writing at nights and on the weekends, waiting for their big break.

But there are also probably thousands of aspiring writers who aren’t writing at all.

So it wouldn’t be right to say that 1 out of every [10,000] aspiring writers will publish a best-seller. Because a lot of aspiring writers (ironically) don’t even write.

A lot of people have the will to win. Very few have the will to practice.

So if you actually write and are half-decent, your conditional probability is much higher than 1 in 10,000 (and of course much lower than 1 in 1).

But these stories aren’t about probability or luck.

They’re about faith and persistence.

When Stephen King was using a thumbtack to pin all of his rejection letters to the wall above his computer, he needed persistence to keep writing.

When the stack of letters got so heavy that he needed to switch the thumbtack out for a heavy-duty nail (which actually happened), he likely needed some faith as well.

If Benjamin Franklin, Stephen King, or Steve Jobs had given up a little earlier, I doubt anyone would have blamed them.

They might have even been celebrated in some circles for being “realistic” or “pragmatic.” Or whatever other words society uses to encourage people not to follow their dreams.

We can speculate on what might have become of each of them if they’d thrown in the towel too soon.

But it’s hard to imagine that any of them would have ever been “great.”

Many will dismiss these sorts of success stories as cases of survivorship bias.

But I’d highlight the reciprocal case. Or rather the lack thereof.

How many of these sorts of stories consist of characters who were not unreasonably persistent?

I would guess basically zero.

When did we start requiring a 100% success rate for a strategy to be deemed useful?

Those looking for guaranteed success as a precursor for getting started will likely be looking for a long time.

Those looking for certainty in how their dots will ultimately connect in the future are certain to be disappointed.

Because as Steve Jobs said in his Stanford commencement speech:

“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, karma, life, 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.”

Kierkegaard had a slightly pithier rendition a few decades earlier: “Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.”

Greatness, however we (individually) choose to define it, is downstream from persistence. And persistence is downstream from faith.

Faith that we are doing the thing we are meant to be doing — persisting in the right direction.

The “thing” will likely change over time, as we collect more dots.

But one day, the dots will connect.

And we will call this constellation of dots “our life.”

We won’t be able to reason our way there.

There won’t be an equation or a formula.

We’ll likely feel lost on occasion. Maybe even more frequently than that.

But so long as we’re following the inner voice that calls us to adventure, we can have faith that we’re on the path.

It’s possible to not know where we’re going, yet still know exactly how to get there.

It’s possible to not know where we’re going, yet still be on our way.