When my sister and I were little, there was a big flat rock in our apple orchard that looked like a map with its carved-out grooves, intersecting lines and varied shapes. It was the size of an upside-down bathtub. We used to sit on it, tracing our fingers along its lines. We called it map rock and wondered if it held all the secrets to our future.

After hours outside climbing trees, playing in our hayloft and riding bikes, I’d stare at my bedroom ceiling and wonder what life would be like when I was older. The future was unknown and the possibilities felt exciting and endless.

Then one day you’re a middle-aged adult. What a crazy ride. 

Sometimes we take our wide-eyed innocence of childhood into adulthood, thinking we can construct a life just by building our future block by block. School. College. Job. Relationship. Kids. In reality, life can unfold with our blocks being knocked down, or someone running away with a few, others being tossed behind the couch — and then we’re left wondering what we can still build. Life can make a collision course of our expectations.

We fail to realize that just because life happens differently than we imagine, it’s still a beautiful masterpiece.

Somewhere on this journey, we all misstep, go backward or get stuck. We start out thinking life will be linear, but it’s circuitous. We wish we could take a magic eraser to a handful of decisions that makes us now ask, What in the world was I thinking? Yet each of these decisions shapes our stories and who we are. Even our wrong choices build us up. We can make a decision to love every chapter and start zooming out to see the unfolding of our lives as our unique artistic creation.

Our path may look like paint splattered against a canvas, when what we want is our journey to look seamless, like a smooth coat of the most beautiful color. Life intervenes with unexpected splashes of color and we take interludes when we forget that all of our art supplies are at our fingertips.

If we did life flawlessly, our stories wouldn’t be interesting. No one looks at their life and says, “Hooray, I haven’t made one wrong decision. I’m absolutely crushing life. Everything is smooth sailing. Where do I line up to collect my trophy?”

We need to view our lives like a favorite book, and embrace every page and chapter, rooting for the main character. What if you accepted cringy decisions and embarrassing failures as relatable parts of your story and the human experience? What if you view tough experiences as a sign that you’re truly alive and see what you can create out of the rubble?

You would be bored reading a book if the main character was winning all the time. Most of us love stories with twists, turns, pitfalls, flops, heartbreaks, mistakes, inspiration and celebration. Wrap your arms around all of it.

If we view our lives like art, we give ourselves the freedom to create and live fully. We stop waiting to live perfectly. We don’t have to beat ourselves over the head with those blocks. We don’t even need to find those missing blocks behind the couch. We just keep dancing forward.

What keeps us stuck are the stories we attach to our mistakes about who we are, rather than just things we did or didn’t do. We are allowed to evolve. Giving ourselves bucket loads of compassion is a powerful way to love our journeys. We are allowed to tell ourselves new stories and shed an identity that no longer describes who we are.

We forget how far we have come. 

Try this. Think back to your younger self hanging out in your bedroom, wondering what would be in store for you. Tell the younger you the story of your life and how it’s turning out. There's even science behind the benefits of talking to yourself in second or third person. Here’s an example:

In the blur of life, seeing your story as if it’s a movie can flood you with gratitude. Stop and savor your creation.

What’s your story?

Embrace every twist and turn of your map rock.