Relearning how to get lost

It's curious how much we trust adults when we're little. Each rule is a detailed map of how to live, each instruction an internal GPS that guides us: "turn right," "don't go that way." Until the day we question and deviate from these suggested routes.

It's in these moments of deviation that we begin to shape who we are and sketch our own map. A small decision that can change the entire journey. Like choosing a different path on the way home, or speaking to that person we always saw but never greeted. Suddenly, we rediscover places and people we've passed and crossed a thousand times, but never really seen.

The instances of these small discoveries and deviations from the planned route stay stored somewhere inside us, forgotten. Sometimes a song, a smell, or a Sunday afternoon brings them back. And then we realize that the moments when we strayed weren't mistakes, but the first times we found our own direction.

We live in a world obsessed with destinations and goals, as if life were an emotional Waze indicating the fastest route to happiness. Happiness is not (or shouldn't be) a fixed destination on the map. For me, it appeared in the detours: in a cup of coffee when it's raining, in a book found by chance, in a conversation that extends into the early hours, in my son saying "Dad, look what I learned." These are moments I didn't plan, I just lived.

The funny thing is that each person ends up creating their own map throughout life, with legends and symbols that only make sense to themselves, but even so, we keep comparing routes with others, as if we were all going to the same place, at the same pace, with the same landscapes along the way. But this comparison will never make sense – each map is unique, hand-drawn by experiences that only we have lived.

While we create our own maps, we carry the constant fear of deviating from the "right" path. We think (or are taught) that being lost is a failure, that doubt is a weakness, that hesitating is wasting time. We feel anguish when we don't know which direction to take, when the path isn't clearly marked before us. It's as if uncertainty were a threat, not a possibility. We forget that we constantly need to relearn to trust our instinct, to proceed without a map, so that we can sketch a new path.

Stopping being afraid of getting lost might be a shortcut on the way to any destination. When we accept that dead ends, unexpected shortcuts, moments of doubt lead us exactly where we need to be. Our journey doesn't need to be in a straight line to make sense, because there is no destination, only the discoveries we'll make when we leave the route.