I’ve chased the wrong things in relationships that lasted too long. I’ve cut myself to shreds putting other people’s wants before my own needs. I’ve seen countless people I care about lost in painful loops when the advice they needed was available in a book no one gave them.

The human experience is having people so important to you that their pain is your pain and their love is your lifeline. It’s finding your place in a world that has so much to offer you but will also eat you up if you don’t set firm boundaries on you’ll tolerate. It’s a thousand rich moments with loved ones. A thousand anxious worried nights. A thousand uncertain and uncomfortable decisions. A thousand calm and blissful moments too.

The human experience is all of that. And to navigate these ups and downs we can either learn it the hard way or stand on the shoulders of giants. All these problems have been solved. There is no heartbreak or career disappointment or loss of a loved one or confrontation with mortality that many humans haven’t charted out and left signs to guide the way. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy path, but it is unnecessary to lose yourself in the wilderness without a map. You have maps and guidance for every step, and your job is to slash one vine at a time and keep marching forward. It is not a short path and you might feel lost along the way, but you’re only truly lost if you decide not to use the map.

You see, you are the latest link in the long chain of the human species. One generation at a time has stood on the shoulders of the previous generation, taking the lessons learned, following the map through the jungle, and adding to the map as our knowledge grows. This legacy has rocketed from hunter-gatherers to global dominance and is on the brink of colonizing other planets. You are the next step in this legacy. You are the next link in this chain inheriting thousands of years of lessons learned and advances in wisdom, philosophy, science, and the arts. Your time is now.

You have a tremendous opportunity to take the torch handed to you and benefit from the maps others have painstakingly put together. There were humans who had to cope with life’s challenges before the printing press commoditized written wisdom and the internet put the world at our fingertips. Some humans had to navigate relationships and mortality before psychology and therapy existed. You don’t. The maps are not yet complete but please take a moment to appreciate the vast wealth of knowledge available to you. You are not that hunter-gatherer alone in the wilderness with no map to follow. Even if you had no one to look up to growing up and no one gave you the advice you needed and no one taught you how to manage credit cards or mortgages or student loans. Even if you feel alone in the world and there are no good examples in your family to tell you what your life should be. You still have a map.

You are the next step of the human legacy. You have a chanting stadium full of ancestors who charted out the human experience ahead of you. What you can learn is not limited by the people you know personally. You have the support and guidance of the whole of the human race cheering you on. You have all of their advice and time-tested wisdom and hard-fought progress to lean on. You are their heir. You can choose to stand on their shoulders and you can take the map held out to you to find your way out of this jungle. Sure, life is brutal and uncertain and cannot be conquered. There are always curveballs that will knock you down and life will never be easy, but if you take the torch of your legacy you will never be alone. You can always get back up, stand again upon the shoulders of giants, and see what path forward others took before you.

Never forget this: You are not alone. The path you are on is diabolically hard but there is a path. You don’t have to learn everything the hard way and there are good answers and sound advice out there for the problems you face, even if sometimes the advice is as blunt and bittersweet as “do the scary thing you know you need to do.” You are the one who decides how far you will go. You are the one who has wisdom and knowledge passed onto you and it’s up to you to use them. Those that came before you have run their part of the race, their time is done. Now the torch is in your hands, you are in the middle of the jungle, and it’s up to you to read the map and keep moving forward. 

Your role in the human legacy is to do your best, add a few things to the map, and then pass it forward to the next generation of our kind, just as was done for you. You are not alone, and there are thousands of books and podcasts and pearls of wisdom that make up this map which can help you find your way. I have searched long and hard to find the most helpful maps passed forward to us and I need you to know that you can use them in your life just like I have in mine. 

So many painful parts of my life seemed hopeless until I found the wisdom ironed out by those before us, and then I was able to follow the map to create a better life for myself. I did not figure all of this out on my own. I read what others had learned and I applied it in my own life, even if the easier path would have been repeating the same old mistakes and suffering the same old pain. I use this blog to pull those best pearls together and make them accessible to people going through the same issues that I have in this meandering, bittersweet, unmasterable yet beautiful human experience. I want you to benefit from this wisdom too, so you can have the best life possible and pass a slightly better map to those who follow you.

That’s what I write.