Trusting the Dots…
There's this Steve Jobs speech I often go back to.
He says:
It's about trusting that even when life makes zero sense, or when you feel stuck or like you're going in circles. Things are quietly falling into place.
I love the message, but it can be hard to always keep in mind. Trusting the process when you're someone like me, who'salways trying to figure out why everything's happening, is a lot to ask.
Still, the more I think about it, the more I see the truth in it.
When I look back, the most important moments and relationships in my life have never come from perfectly planned moves. It's always been about instinct and gut decisions. The leap, not the map.
Like when I moved to New York.
There was no grand plan. No five-year vision board or spreadsheet. I just knew I had to go. It wasn't logical, but it was right. And that move cracked me open. I met people who have become woven into the fabric of my life, core memory type people.
New York changed me.
I went in fairly introverted, sticking to routines that kept me safe and I came out really different - ha ha.
I wasn't sticking to a script, and honestly, I didn't have much of a concept of what life could be outside of my London bubble. But I'm so glad I jumped, because the people I met wouldn't have found me otherwise.
This is where the 'Red String Theory' comes in.
I heard about it ages ago—I can't remember where, probably a podcast—but the idea stuck. It's this belief that invisible red strings connect you to the people you're destined to meet. You don't know when or how they'll cross your path, but when it happens, it just… clicks. I see it all the time in my life.
Like when Lee introduced me to Tamara.
It was one of those "You should meet, I think you'll get on well" moments. Casual, no big deal. But then we met, and it felt like we'd known each other for years. We drank wine, laughed, talked until it was stupidly late.
And now?
Now, I can't imagine life without her or her family. Her daughters feel like my nieces. Her husband, her whole world, has this special place in my life that I didn't even realise was missing. Tamara is that person who sees me. Really sees me. She reflects things back to me in ways that help me grow and ground me.
And all of that came from one random introduction.
Would we have met without Lee?
I don't know.
But I'm grateful he stepped in to make sure we did.
That's the thing. These connections don't arrive because of perfect timing or meticulous planning. They come from chance. Instinct.
Someone saying, "You have to meet this person."
Some of my most important friendships came from work too. We joke about 'work wives' and trauma bonding over terrible managers, but honestly, those bonds are real. You get thrown into the madness together, and if you're lucky, those connections will last long after the job ends. It's like the job was just the reason for your paths to cross, but what comes after is where the good stuff really happens.
So yeah, maybe Steve was onto something with his dots speech.
I find it easy to get stuck in the grind and feel like nothing's happening, where I ask myself:
Am I just going through the motions here?
What I am trying to remind myself is that I'm still in the middle of it. The dots aren't all connected yet. The string is still pulling me somewhere. I just don't know where that is right now.
And that's okay.
Maybe this is just another comforting story we tell ourselves. Or maybe it's not.
What I do know is that the best things in my life, the people, the experiences, have never come from trying to control every step. They've come when I followed my gut, took a risk, said yes to something I couldn't quite explain.
So now I'm learning to trust the string.
Let it guide me instead of forcing things into a plan that never works anyway.
Maybe that's the secret, not to chase the string, but to let it find you.
