Nobody Has the Manual
Nobody really has life figured out. Everyone is just doing their best with the knowledge they have at the moment. Some people follow structures that worked for others, some make it up as they go. Most people just try to hand-wave their way through and hoping it all works out.
For a long time, I was someone who followed the rules. Not just legal or formal rules, but all kinds of made-up expectations—like you need to check every box before applying for a job, or that you can’t sign up for an event after the deadline has passed. But over time, I started realizing: a lot of these “rules” aren’t set in stone. They’re just... made up. Someone somewhere decided that’s how it should be done, and we’ve all been following along ever since.
Looking back, I think I might know why I was so cautious about breaking rules. Especially as a kid, I was scared of what might happen if I stepped outside the lines—even just a little. I remember one moment from primary school that stuck with me, even now, twenty years later. We were playing outside before lessons started, jumping from one puddle to another. Just kids being kids. But a teacher had been watching us from inside, and when we came back in, some kids got in trouble, while others didn’t. The randomness of it—the idea that doing something fun and harmless could suddenly land you in trouble—left a little mark.
That kind of moment drills you to stay inside the lines, even when you think the lines make no sense. It wires you to think: better safe than sorry. But that caution can start to hold you back in many ways and limit your beliefs of what's possible.
I’ve found that once your mindset on this shifts, a lot more possibilities that seem to have been closed by rules can open up. It feels like it can free your mind from the boundaries that have been made up by others.
This doesn’t mean you should go around ignoring people or disrespecting what others have built. It just means you get to see them differently. Even the people who seem really senior or “expert”—they’re mostly just people who’ve found something that works for them over time. That’s valuable, but it’s not the only way and especially not the way that will always work for you.
The moment you stop assuming that everyone else has a secret manual you missed out on, things start to feel lighter. You can experiment. You can ask. You can bend things. And sometimes, that opens doors that would’ve otherwise stayed shut—just because you didn’t know you could knock.