Follow The Line

You don't have to know where you're going. 

Take a piece of paper.

Place your pencil somewhere upon it.

Anywhere.

Now begin drawing a line.

Don't decide where it is going.

Let it wander.

Let it turn when it wants to turn.

Let it loop around itself.

Let it climb.

Let it tumble.

Let it become impossibly tangled if that is where it wants to go.

And most importantly—

don't lift your pencil.

For a little while, simply follow.

When it finally feels finished, stop.

Now look.

Turn the paper sideways.

Turn it upside down.

Hold it farther away.

Look into all those loops and crossings and unexpected little spaces.

Do you see anything?

Perhaps there is a bird hiding between two lines.

A face.

A flower.

A creature that has never existed before.

Perhaps you see an entire landscape.

Or perhaps you see absolutely nothing.

That is perfectly fine too.

You were never trying to draw something.

You were practicing something else.

Following without knowing.

Moving without having the whole map.

Trusting the next inch of the journey before you could see where it might lead.

We spend so much of our lives believing we should know where we are going before we begin.

Creativity remembers something different.

Sometimes you discover where you are going—

because you began.

So if you find yourself standing somewhere in your life without the entire path visible...

perhaps you don't need the whole path yet.

Perhaps you only need enough courage for the next little line.

Put your pencil down.

See where it takes you.