The Invention of Self

Finding your voice is one of the most important experiences you will ever have. And the process cannot be rushed. Likewise, it isn’t just something that magically “happens.” Instead, it’s both an exercise in discipline and a process of discovery that allows for—and requires—a lot of experimentation and failure. Most of the time, finding your voice

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the main thing God gets out of your life is the person you become. He desires for people to know God in an interactive, life-transforming way.

• If you cycle through this feedback loop ferociously for ten years, you will end up with a well-designed life. It will not look like you imagined it would. It will have unfolded around you, and you will struggle to wrap your head around how you ended up where you did.


• You will have lost track of all the experiments and insights that led you to a fit.

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Self-actualization means, at least partly, that you have designed a life that fits you—that allows you to express your human potential.

So what we see is that self-actualization is a flywheel: you become self-actualized by seeing reality clearly so you can design a life that fits you, and you become better at seeing reality by engaging with it head-on.

It has been what Christopher Alexander called an unfolding .1 Put simply:

• I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people to find me, and then I hung out with them. We did projects together.


• I kept iterating—paying attention to the context, removing things that frustrated me, and expa

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