For many, the answer is yes. They’ve seen a picture somewhere and everywhere. In a church nearby. On the internet. In stories and videos. In many renditions made during Easter and Christmas.

None of the images you’ve seen of Jesus is right. When compared to one another, none of them is wrong.

What has travelled over the centuries are vivid imaginations of what various people in each generation believed Jesus looked like.

None of them could truly tell how tall he was, or how fair. None of them is certain about the colour of his eyes, the thickness of his eyelids or the size and depth of his philtrum.

None of them truly knew if he had a mustache, and what his cheekbone look like. None of them can truly tell us about the size of his teeth, what his smile looked like or what the tone of his voice sounded like.

Those who have a spiritual relationship can infer from the voice they’ve heard. None of the voices in all videos reenacted and none of the portraits in all the billions of pictures ever created is truly of the Jesus who walked on earth.

Imagine that the first time you had an experience, it gets written in an online document. Everything you felt was recorded. Then the document expands to include every decision you make, and the blocks of beliefs and assumptions those decisions are built on.

Imagine those blocks were used to make a platform. And you have to walk on that platform. Speak from that platform. Live on that platform. And for some reasons, no one goes back to check if those blocks are credible enough to carry your weight the way it did in the past.

Maybe we need not imagine it. Why imagine when we live it out daily.

Worldviews are living documents. They will always be edited, added to, and removed from. They will be altered constantly. They are meant to.

I get better as I keep reconsidering my perception of reality and altering my stand based on fresh insights. Fresh insights doesn’t have to mean new insights; it might be an old wisdom looked at in a way I hadn’t before.

The more certain I am that how I see reality is the most correct, the more likely there is an untested assumption or folly lurking somewhere close.

And the more I effect these tiny changes, the more different I become. I love to change my opinions about things all the time. I like to review old decisions and check the assumptions that led to them. I try to get as close as I can to what’s useful and real.

This is a good thing, but not for everyone. Living this way may be more challenging for the people around you than it is for you.

Does this story feel familiar?

People get close to you and fall in love with a version of you they know now. As your worldview changes, some of those people try to hold on to the version of you they met. And they start grieving the loss of that version. Grief shows up in many ways. From criticising the new, to insisting on the old.

Just as no one steps into the same stream twice, we are never the same person when we keep editing how we see the world.

How we see the world influences what we do in the world. It influences the problems we choose to solve, the people we choose to love, and how we live. The least we can do is to pay attention to the little script running under the hood.

Maybe, the world becomes better from this simple life-long activity. At least, our worlds will.

For each of those situations, doing what was pre-determined and universally accepted can be considered right. Deviating from that may be considered wrong.

If I ask you for the first few numbers of Pie, all you have to do is vomit what the scientific community had pre-determined.

Same for the speed of light or how many terms the president of your country can stand for re-election.

How about how to show respect for someone older?

Anyone who doesn’t belong to or acknowledge the group we reference can decide not to honour that pre-determined answer and find their own answers.

It was once considered right that the earth was flat. It still is within some groups. People have been shamed and punished for saying the earth rotated round the sun. And many have lost their lives or livelihood to saying things that weren’t aligned with what’s popular.

Often, right and wrong is a result of a group’s taste.

Have you heard people debate what tools is right for a job, casting disdain and shame on anyone who dares a different path? Think programmers and programming languages. Designers and software tools. Lawyers and legal templates. Accountants and accounting practices. Writers and book layouts. Educators and teaching styles. Researchers and citation techniques.

The only time you can get away with driving on the left side of the road is when you drive in places where the group had pre-determined this.

Most laws, rules and rituals are results of the taste of the average member of that group.

Even this sentence is uncorrect because English speakers had pre-decided that we prefer ‘incorrect’ to ‘uncorrect,’ and ‘uncorrectable’ to ‘incorrectable.’

Right and wrong is often about what the group you choose to belong has pre-determined as the answer to each specific situation. Even if it’s a group of 1.

A group favours a way of doing something and makes it a convention. You see that convention and call it best practice.

No best practice is right or wrong. Just group think and taste at work.

I had a few of those. There are some I re-read every few years. I read one and it didn’t do what it used to do. It was, underwhelming, to say the least.

Did I outgrow the book? Had the same happened to you too?

Maybe it wasn’t the books. Maybe it was the time you read them. Pick that book up today, and chances are it may not have the same effect it once had on you. Like the line in one book that used to be ‘boring’ and has now become one of my favourites.

Same books. Different resonance.

So what’s the right answer to the question we opened with? There are no right and wrong answers.

Just moments in time. Each book was best for that particular phase.

Right now, I’m not interested in ‘saving the world’. We can still influence the world, change the world, make the world better. But not by trying to saving the world with our might.

Our job is not to save the world. It’s not to save anyone.

It’s to enable people to do their best work and save themselves. It’s to support others so they can stand up for themselves. So they can choose what problem they want to help solve. So they can do the work the quest they’ve chosen requires.

We can create environments that enable those quests. We can hunt for resources to make those quests possible. But we can’t do those quests for them.

I’ve come to understand that ‘change-making’ isn’t about saving the world. It’s about connecting with others to see the gaps together, so that each of us can choose which gaps we want to fill.

Of course, this is just one lens that may resonate with a different phase of life. If ‘saving the world’ lights you up in ways that make you show up with care and dedication to the work, and if it drives you to create things that benefit others in unprecedented ways, then follow that path.

There is no one way to make our worlds better.

“I feel proud of myself for resisting the urge of sitting through that.”she later told him. “Feels so joyful,” she added.

One joy felt shallow. The other felt deeper.

Until he mentions that the series he saw inspired the white paper he published yesterday and will serve as foundation for his next project.

And she later confessed to spending some of that time just scrolling on her phone.

We all have within reach options that bring shallow joys and deeper joys. None is better than the other. None is more right than the other.

The ultimate test of the joy you enjoy is that it is helping you become the kind of person you said you want to be.

We are both friends to someone who starts the day at 3am, does most things until they step out at 8am and returns home so they can sleep at 6pm. Only to wake up at 2:30am to prep for the day. Like clockwork.

I have another friend who also starts her day at 6am and takes a break by 9:30am. I know not to call her between 10am and noon because she will be sleeping. Then she starts the second part of the day and retires to bed later at night.

When I talked about these my friends recently, someone I barely knew scolded: “how can she be wasting prime time sleeping?”

Made me wonder who defines what time is prime time.

None of their approaches are right and wrong. Just different.

All conclusions are snapshots. No conclusion covers it all.

No picture is the complete picture. Just stories within a frame.

No answer is an absolute answer.

When our choice changes based on what tradeoff we are comfortable with, there is rarely a right or wrong answer.

Life is both simple and complex. Clarity and mystery can live together in the same space.

Ambiguity and clarity work in cycles. One leading to the other.

The more we know, the more we know we don’t know.

The more we mature, the more we realise these over and over again.

A modular expert flamboyantly declared the answer as both 0 and 1.

A class of kindergarten kids chorused ‘4’ as an answer.

The post-doc who once used binary numbers system convinced me the answer is written as 100.

In a way, they were all right. In a way, they were wrong. Or better, there was no right or wrong.

They all gave us a piece of what they understood based on where they were standing, and all they could see.

When a simple question leads to multiple answers, maybe the question and the paths become more valuable than hugging one singular answer.

There is a story from Matthew Syed that might help us answer that question. Matthew once watched the three greatest tennis players of all time play at the same time.

Who wouldn’t love to see Federer, Nadal and Djokovic play?

He described what he saw.

“When Nadal warmed up, it was sheer aggression. He sprinted up and down like a man possessed with his shirt dripping in sweat.

When Djokovic warmed up, it was pure emotionless calibration. He was measured and scientific with every shot.

When Federer warmed up, you could hear him giggling before he arrived. He was doing trick shots, caressing the ball and exploring his own creativity.”

The right and wrong way to play tennis is often dictated by what some people have pre-agreed about the game.

But the best way to play tennis? That’s to play it the way that works for you, based on all you know about yourself and the the game.

Maybe that’s the best way to play every other game, including the game of life.

Especially the game of life.

Everything happens in contexts.

What is acceptable in one context may not be when the context changes.

Every society defines what is acceptable and what isn’t. Every action falls on the spectrum between being acceptable and not being acceptable. Throughout human history, the same actions have danced from one end of that spectrum to the other.

Right and wrong are ineffective tools we use in moving around the world. We keep using it because it sometimes gets us close to where we want. It sometimes help us imprint our perspective on others.

Every perspective is incomplete regardless of the truth in it.

We use right and wrong to create pain and judgement. We use both to grow in status and affiliation. We use both, even when it has become a prison.

That something is deemed as ‘right’ doesn’t make it acceptable. Others labelling it ‘wrong’ doesn’t make it not acceptable either.

When we swap right and wrong for acceptable and not acceptable (yet), we may find a better framework.

But when we use it, we can also be mindful to answer: acceptable to whom exactly? Who made this rule, and why?

Less than a century ago, it was not acceptable for women to vote or work outside their homes - until it was. It was acceptable for humans to kill one another as a form of entertainment and sport, until it wasn’t. Even within the same country, what’s acceptable for one family is not for another.

Many of what we consider acceptable today will be laughed at tomorrow.

The least we can do is to define what is acceptable to us, right now. And why it is. We know some of it will change. We expect it to.

And we can stop living the lie of being right and wrong.

Transformation happens when we lean into the wisdom of what’s uncertain, only to come out at the other end better.

Ask a lot of people with this experience if they are grateful for going through the process when things were uncertain. You’ll likely hear resounding yeses. Ask if they’ll want to go through that process again, and you might get surprising answers.

The best way to future-proof isn’t to predict more scenarios, but to tune your mind to address whatever happens. Whatever happens is the plan.

What makes most games interesting is that you get to make decisions when uncertain. Think of all the games you’ve played - from video games, board games and the ones designed by life.

We always have a choice when dealing with uncertainty. We can decide which to live with and which not to. The wisdom is in knowing which kind we’ve been dealt with.

We can plan as much as we can. And we should, based on all we can control. We can’t accurately predict what uncertainty will influence the final outcome.

Neither is it useful fearing or fighting what’s uncertain. We drown in uncertainty when we fear it the most. The answer to what’s uncertain doesn’t have to end with “I don’t really know” or “I might not know”.

It might as well be “I wonder what I have to learn to figure this out. Fun, yeah?”

You might be somewhat set, but there is still a gap in what you are thinking about.

Maybe your body is tired. Or your mind wants to pay attention to something else. Something urgent.

Or there is resistance. Maybe not to writing. But to something else. Something you might uncover as you write.

Or the excitement of what the completed work will look and feel like. And what those who’ll love the piece will say. And what those who dislike the piece will say.

Maybe there is no excitement. No trepidation. Maybe, there is no fuel to dream up the next word.

Maybe you are just blocked. That block is real.

Just that, it is almost about everything else but making and writing the next sentence.

Writer’s block is the story we tell ourselves to pass things on to the muse.

We can stop lying to ourselves about why we aren’t writing. We can own what’s truly holding us back and decide what to do about it.1

It’s the kind of book that reminds us of what happens when we allow ourselves see the details in the world around us. And the worlds we can imagine.

It hugs you, reassuring that your weirdness isn’t something to be fixed. That it’s more than okay to care about what others don’t see.

I love the reminder that we have the freedom to think up and discover a dragon, our dragon, and tell stories about it. These dragons aren’t meant to be slain. Stories about them are meant to be shared with those we love.

It reminded me of why we make things. Why we care. And why what we care about matters.

The other leans forward. “Yes. But not a normal dragon.”

So they dream one up together.1

Just like them, you see things nobody else does. Weird gaps that call at you. Strange problems that only you seem to understand. Obsessions that won’t let go.

You may think it’s too small to care about. Too immaterial. But that’s exactly the point. You cared because that’s your dragon.

Slaying it will be trying to be like others. Trying to be normal. Instead, sit with it. Understand it. Share it someone who gets it. Then, make it real. Put yourself on the line and fill that weird gap with what you make. Make it in ways that those you made it for can feel what you felt.

Maybe that’s the secret all along. We were all born weird so we can spot gaps visible to just us, and a few people like us. The best gift is to share that weirdness with others - through the things we make, the stories we tell, and the problems we help solve.

Can you see how who you are validates those that look up to you?

Can you see the parts of yourself you freely and graciously love? And the parts you are yet unwilling to love?

Can you see the parts of yourself that aren’t socially acceptable? The parts of yourself you’ve learnt to hide?

Can you see yourself feeling the full spectrum of human emotions? Avoiding none? Leaving none behind?

Can you see the parts of you that get triggered when you judge others?

Can you see the parts of you that you nudge others to avoid?

Can you see the parts of you that bring you joy? The parts that erupt in shared bliss?

Can you see the multitudes of colours you contain? If you could truly paint all of you, what part will be ungenerous with light? What will have some light? What will be grey? What will be colourful? What colours will you use and why?

To be seen by others and to see others are undeniably powerful experiences. That’s why we often want another human being to see us, to truly know us.

The real gift is to see oneself in full. It amplifies every other experience.

The ultimate goal is to be your own credibility stamp.

When I think of the people I really adore - from Jesus to Charlie Munger and my dad - I realise they were their own credibility stamps. This may just be because their stories survived. There might be many like them who didn’t rely on external stamps of validity. Even if no one remembers those people, the peace of knowing they lived by their standards, and were credible in themselves is enough.

Over time, we learn that the credibility stamps on us aren’t for us. They are for others. And we learn not to define ourselves by the stamps others graciously place on us. The moment we need them to feel worthy, we’ve lost. Even if we have them all.

If you checked my profile a decade ago, you’ll find yourself reading through many credibility stamps - from fellowships, to awards and citations of those who have praised my work. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s no longer there, but anyone good with search can still find them online.

Those stamps have their place in the world. They make it easy for others to see the work we’ve done. They are placeholders for trust. They signal to others that we are legit. They may get us in the door, but we still have to do the work of affirming, building and retaining trust.

The danger is seeing ourselves only through the lens of those stamps.

That phrase, Ò̩nà kan ò wo̩jà, means 'not only one way leads to the market'

No one path leads us to our destination.

Sometimes, the best path for us is the path we choose. Others may follow a different path and we both arrive at the same destination.

Other times, the path we choose doesn’t look like a direct path. But it will get us to our destination.

It's a reminder that there is no one way to live, no one way to be a lover, no one way to be a human being.

And there is no one way to decide what path we choose.

Two books that remind me of this are David Eagleman's SUM and Derek Sivers' How to Live. What made both work for me is that they find different answers to the same question. None of those answers were wrong. None of them were truly correct. And that's what makes life more interesting.

All it takes to get to our destination is finding another path to get there and staying on course. A focus on finding the next path is a better use of energy than complaining over the path not taken.

It’s often easier to keep thinking about the familiar paths. Those are the best moments to remember this piece.

OKOW.

There is no humility in being the world best kept secret.

What you have can improve the lives of others. Why keep it to yourself?

Let the people you choose to serve know what you offer. Give them something worth sharing with others.

Not doing that might be traced to fear.

Aggressively shouting through the roof might be traced to fear.

Your work may help us race to the top. It may help us fill a gap we want to fill. It may help us see beauty differently, or inspire us to do something like it.

If your work can truly help us, keeping it the world best secret may not be noble. It may be selfish.

Yes, you’ve made your work with care. You’ve crafted it in love. You are working on something worthwhile - something that changes you as you by the day.

It may make no difference for others if you keep biting your tongue.

But by tomorrow, the problem still exists. No one understands the issue. Everyone still asks “are we almost there yet?”.

Complicated problems are complicated for a reason. The simple solution may not solve it, but it may get us closer to understanding why the problem still exists. If we let it.

Simple may cut it eventually, but not until we fully understand why the problem is complicated, what and who the problem enables, why it still exists and what we need to do to make the problem thrive.

You can now start collecting simple solutions. Each solution takes us a layer deeper. You now know why the issue is still here. You know what makes it tick. And you know that your first simple solution didn’t solve it.

So you build an arsenal of simple solutions. You’ll be tempted to find a magic bullet. Don’t. It’s often an illusion. The problem won’t be here if there was a magic bullet.

In the end, a few simple solutions will save the day. It may not be the first ones. Maybe solutions 2, 6 and 11 working together.