Ultimately, Rumi’s metaphor of the ‘map of your life’ challenges the belief that our path is fixed. When we treat small decisions as mere background noise, we behave as if the map were already drawn and we are just tracing its lines. By contrast, turning those same decisions into bold directions means accepting authorship: every choice is a pen in our hand. Over time, the cumulative effect is a life that bears our signature rather than our fear. Thus Rumi’s counsel is both humbling and liberating—if we wish for a different destination, we must begin by walking differently in the smallest possible step today. [...]
