Rivers bend because water wears down the outside of every curve. Even your detours are shaping you.

A path’s shape and the forces that pushed on it are one story. Every place where things did not go straight is a place where something happened to you, and that is where the character came from. The route you did not plan is not a deviation from your life. It is much of the visible part of it.

Take one detour this week and look at what it left behind. The team that cut you, the class you had to retake, the job that ended. Name one thing you can do now because of it, even if you would still rather it had gone the other way.