Everything I write comes down to one thing: replacing default with intention. Default is what you do without choosing it, repeating what was done before or what others do. Intention is consciously committing to a direction. Each piece approaches it from a different angle, and together they build toward an authentic, happy and meaningful life.

In my earlier piece on talent and the room we have to grow, I explored how believing our abilities are fixed can limit what we allow ourselves to pursue. We can take what we know about our abilities now and treat it as a conclusion about what will ever be possible for us. While writing, I felt the need to address this more broadly: the habit of treating our current understanding as final extends far beyond how we view talent or intelligence.

We do it with other people, with our understanding of life, and with the things we believe we know. I see this also in the authority we give scientific knowledge in Western society: we can mistake what has been established so far for the limits of what could be true. At some point, for some, an understanding becomes a certainty. We stop looking, because we think we have already seen.

If living in accordance with your path involves paying attention and surrendering to what life brings, remaining open is essential. When you assume you already know what something is or what it could mean, you can miss what life is offering you.

When a description becomes a conclusion
Labels help us make sense of things. We need words to communicate, recognize patterns and use what we have learned.

But there is a difference between describing what we have noticed and deciding that we have understood something completely.

“I find this difficult” becomes “I cannot do this.” Someone has responded defensively a few times, and we decide they are a difficult person. A particular way of working has served us well, so we assume it must be the right way.

The description starts to decide what we are willing to see. Psychologists call one form of this confirmation bias: we tend to favor information that supports what we already believe and discount what challenges it. We can then become more certain of our understanding without having considered everything equally.

This can happen even with the work of getting to know ourselves. Understanding your strengths can help you recognize your path. But if that understanding becomes a finished definition of who you are, it can also stop you from discovering something new.

You are always still becoming
Research offers an interesting example. Across studies involving more than nineteen thousand people, adults were asked about changes in their personalities, values and preferences. People tended to expect less change over the coming decade than people ten years older reported having experienced over the previous one. The researchers called this the “end of history illusion.”

It is easier to recognize that we have changed than to imagine how much we might still change.

Think about what you once wanted, believed or thought you could never do. Some of it may still fit. Some of it may now feel very far away. Why assume that the understanding you have today is the final one?

You can take who you are seriously while leaving room for who you have not yet discovered yourself to be.

Allowing yourself to think beyond what currently feels possible can change the openness with which you approach life. You may consider an opportunity you would otherwise dismiss, begin learning something you assumed was beyond you, or give an idea more room to develop. Through doing those things, you can discover possibilities that your previous understanding of yourself would have ruled out. You do not need to know in advance how far you could go. But treating what feels possible now as a fixed limit can keep you from finding out.

The same applies to others. What someone has done matters, and we may need to respond to it. But their behavior does not give us complete knowledge of their inner life, or of everything they could become.

Someone may be responding through a learned pattern, a fear or a way of protecting themselves. If we decide that this is simply who they are, we may stop seeing anything beyond it.

Learning to see what is actually there
In a course I took on Chinese philosophy at Harvard, we explored how the categories through which we see the world can prevent us from responding to what is actually happening.

Think back to Butcher Ding, from Zhuangzi’s story. His skill develops through years of practice and attention. He becomes sensitive to the structure of what he is working with and learns to move with it.

What interests me here is the attention that makes this possible. He is responding to what is in front of him, rather than imposing the same movement everywhere.

We can practice something similar in ordinary life. When we enter a familiar conversation, do we listen to what the other person is saying now, or do we already know what they mean? When an opportunity appears, do we notice what it brings, or immediately sort it into what we have already decided our life should look like?

Remaining open takes practice. Familiar explanations can become a default: we respond to what we think we already know, without checking whether it fits what is happening now. Noticing when an old explanation has arrived before we have really looked gives us a chance to return our attention to what is actually here and respond with intention.

Knowing a great deal
Expertise does not automatically protect us from this. Sometimes knowing a great deal about something can make it harder to recognize the limits of our understanding.

There is a difference between saying, “There is good evidence for this,” and saying, “Anything outside my current understanding cannot be possible.”

Research in the life sciences offers a striking example. A study examining the deaths of eminent scientists found that, afterward, their research areas attracted more contributions from scientists who had not previously collaborated with them. These contributions were often less closely aligned with the established work in the field.

That does not tell us that the established scientists were wrong, or that every unfamiliar idea deserved acceptance. It does raise a question about how much room an established field leaves for other approaches.

For me, this is a matter of humility. When I consider the scale and complexity of the universe, I cannot imagine that even everything humanity may ever understand could come close to all there is to know. Our current explanations help us make sense of what we encounter. But how could the limits of our understanding be the limits of what exists?

That question applies to our scientific knowledge, but also to our ideas about love, success, purpose and what a meaningful life should look like.

I would find it far more useful if we grew up learning that what we know is a starting point for exploration, rather than a complete account of what is possible. We could learn to ask what else may be there, how else something could work, and what our explanations leave open. That would give curiosity and imagination more room, instead of teaching us to close down possibilities simply because they do not fit what we have learned so far.

Life does not need our definitions
When I consider the universe, I see an order, intelligence and such complexity yet perfection. There is something profoundly humbling in that.

If such complexity and perfection existed long before us, why do we live as though life can only work out if we control how it unfolds? Why do we place so much trust in our limited understanding, and so little in what life might bring? When life does not go the way we want, we can become caught up in frustration and resistance, trying to force a different outcome instead of meeting what is actually happening.

The Tao Te Ching, an ancient Chinese text, uses the word Tao, usually translated as “the Way,” to point to the source of all things and the way life unfolds. Its opening passage says that the Tao cannot be fully captured in words or names. Even the word Tao is a way of referring to something that goes beyond our ability to define it completely.

I understand this as a reminder that our explanations can help us make sense of life without giving us complete knowledge of it, or control over how it unfolds.

We can describe how something works and still have unanswered questions. We can recognize a direction in our lives without knowing all that it will ask of us.

We can also learn to trust life, accepting what is happening and responding to it, even when it differs from what we had envisioned or expected. That is what I mean by surrender. I do not need to understand everything in advance or know how it will turn out. I can bring intention and dedication to what is here, while remaining open to a direction or outcome that is not mine to determine.

Having convictions and remaining open
Intellectual humility means recognizing the limits of our own knowledge and accepting that even something we feel certain about could be incomplete or mistaken. It involves being willing to question our conclusions and consider information or perspectives that might change our understanding. In a series of studies, people higher in intellectual humility were more attentive to the strength of arguments and, for example, less inclined to dismiss politicians who changed their views as merely inconsistent.

That matters in finding your path too. You may have an intention that feels deeply right, while your understanding of how to serve it continues to develop. An unexpected encounter may show you another way. Something you had dismissed may become meaningful.

This makes me think of how the I Ching ends. While studying it, I noticed that After Completion is followed by Before Completion, the last of its sixty-four hexagrams. Even at the end of the book, there is still a transition unfolding.

In practice

• Notice one description you use about yourself. What experience is it based on? Does it describe something you have encountered, or have you made it a conclusion about what will always be possible?

• Think of someone you feel you already understand. In your next conversation, listen for something you have not heard before. Let what they actually say matter more than what you expected.

• Choose one belief about how your life should look. Where did it come from? Does it still feel right, or have you simply stopped questioning it?

• When something challenges your understanding, pause before defending it. What do you know? What are you assuming? What could you learn by looking again?

• And sometimes, leave a little space before explaining or sharing about an experience. Notice what you feel, what draws your attention, and what you do not yet have words for.

Eckhart Tolle captures this trust in The Power of Now: “Say ‘yes’ to life, and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”.

Keep your mind and heart open.

Azoulay, Fons-Rosen & Graff Zivin (2019)
Leary et al. (2017)
Lord, Ross & Lepper (1979)
Quoidbach, Gilbert & Wilson (2013)
Laozi (n.d.)
Tolle (1997)
Wilhelm (1950)