The Third Step - Experimenting

Testing the connections

As you start to see the map of your life more clearly, you'll become aware of its relational nature. It will become increasingly apparent that nothing exists in isolation. To use our earlier example, when a friend pauses in conversation, it's not a single moment. Instead, it's a marker of a network that becomes visible in that instant. That is why it might give you pause. You may ask yourself, did I say something? or is something wrong? Both questions show that you're aware of the relational nature of the moment — that the pause is in response to something.

Curiosity as a Tool

The third step, then, is almost childlike. It involves nurturing those "but why" moments with a spirit of open curiosity. It means putting aside the inner critic who might say something like "that's just the way life is," or "shh — you're overthinking it."

This doesn't mean being childish. Unlike the child, the adult can bring a measure of patience and respect that allows the answer rather than forcing it. We can do this by making small adjustments to situations and seeing what happens.

Let's try an example. You may notice over time that whenever you spend time with a friend, you come away feeling flat. You might enjoy your time with them otherwise, so you're unsure why you end up feeling as you do. If you stop and consider all the variables at play, you might notice that there's more than just the friend in the story. It might be that you always tend to meet at lunch during the work week, at busy coffee shops. This is a great opportunity to experiment. See what happens if you meet at a quiet park, or on the weekend. Change one part of the story and see what happens.

Slow, Masterful Change

Of course, lunch with a friend is a very low-stakes example. When people are looking to implement change, they're often thinking about "big ticket" items — a new job, a change in relationships, maybe moving house. The trick, though, is to learn with the small, easy-to-manage situations. Even small changes can ripple outward in ways that are difficult to predict. Changing where you share lunch may lead to deeper conversations, which might deepen the friendship — or reveal fundamental differences in values, taking things in an altogether different direction.

Remember here that becoming the author of your life isn't about changing everything to fit some abstract ideal. The goal is to understand the relationships that make up your life, and to work with those. If you can see clearly the basic ingredients of your life, the connections between them, and the causal flow between them, you're starting to understand what makes your life the way it is. Importantly, this isn't about becoming perfect. It's about seeing the value in the small, and learning how to make the everyday align more closely with what you want.

In this respect, your life can be viewed as a map. It has peaks — points that can be difficult to reach — and valleys — areas you can slide into without really thinking about it. Unlike a map, though, the threads it's built from are fluid. They are the relations that connect the people, places, and events that form the general terrain. And like the threads in any structure, a small tug on one might only affect the local terrain — or it might connect to many other threads, and change far more than you'd expect. This is why we start small, and build slowly.

An Exercise

Identify something small in your life you've noticed and are familiar with. Write one sentence that captures its relational nature: when I do ___ (x), ___ (y) seems to happen. This week, try changing X and see what shifts. Whatever you choose, keep it low-stakes — this is a learning exercise. Part of what you're learning is scale: how responsive your life is to nudges in its causal structure. This varies greatly from person to person, and you want to know how it works for you.

One more thing to watch for: don't try to change everything at once. Doing so makes it hard to know what's actually causing what you experience. Instead, over time, slowly build a library of experience — this is the material that will become your map. Putting that together is something we'll talk about next. For now, just start to experiment, and see what you discover.

Progress to The Fourth Step - Mapping

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