Instructions are useful, but complicated, and incredibly frustrating, things. There’s a bit on Confucius about engaging in thought on his own for an entire day and night, and wishing instead that he’d spent that time in learning.

In the chaos of the real world, it’s useful to see what people have done, but sometimes the best way to learn is really just to start doing something. In other words, Confucius didn’t have people he could talk to, and he didn’t have the internet.

The internet is the game you can play without reading the instructions too much.

Play a couple of rounds, and see how it goes. You’ll learn along the way. And you can always consult the instructions, if you keep them around. You’ll find better instructions as you play, and eventually figure out why the game works the way it does.

There is no book that’s going to give you a step-by-step path to what you’re going through. You might think there is, until you get to the end of the book, and you realize that your journey has barely just started.