The 20th-century Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, captured a powerful insight when he wrote: ‘there is no path, the path is made by walking.’
The challenge to our assumption that there must be something already there – and not finding it is our fault – is liberating for quiet disruptors. It’s permission to create, to see the new possibilities, to change the conversation.
However, there are times when what we’re doing is re-making the path. Places we have been, metaphorically. Ways through that we have created – sometimes in a different context or time – that we need to re-find. Not preserving in aspic, but recognising and bringing to life.
This isn’t a failure. It’s listening out for the echoes, the resonances that connect us to the core of who we are and our calling in the ongoing creation of the world.
And setting them free.