As we close our conversations about Pillar Two, Expand the Field, I want to look back briefly at what we’ve explored. We’ve talked about looking both internally and externally, looking beyond the obvious opportunities around us, questioning our first explanations, and recognizing when our entire field has shifted and we need to look at our new landscape differently rather than expecting the old one to still exist.
So far, much of this has assumed that expansion means seeing something we weren’t seeing before, something that was already there. But what happens if we look carefully, question our assumptions, reconsider the landscape around us, and really don’t see another option waiting to be discovered? Can expanding the field sometimes require something more than seeing differently?
We’ve acknowledged that there is usually a genuine constraint we’re struggling against, and once we’ve accurately named that constraint, we have the ability to see more clearly. But sometimes what we see is that the road really is closed. Sometimes the field of our lives really is smaller, at least for the time being. It isn’t enough to say that if we simply look hard enough, another opportunity will always appear. We do have to exercise our muscles of inquiry. We do have to look at the options available to us. But some of those inquiries may lead nowhere. Some of those options may prove unworkable. The alternative we hoped for may genuinely not exist.
That doesn’t make expanding the field useless. All of those inquiries and explorations matter. But when we reach the point where the possibilities we’re looking for simply don’t seem to exist, perhaps it’s time to reconsider what expanding the field can actually mean. Maybe we aren’t limited to discovering possibilities we’ve overlooked; maybe we can participate in creating them. Maybe sometimes we have to.
In all honesty, that’s an expansion of my own original idea of what it means to Expand the Field. It happened because I ran across an essay called “Desire Paths,” written by David Farrier for Emergence Magazine. Farrier writes about the concept of desire paths, paths created by humans or animals repeatedly stepping where no established path exists. And I came to realize that there’s a significant difference between saying, “There’s a path I haven’t noticed,” and saying, “There may not be a path until someone begins walking.”
Taking that first step doesn’t guarantee a successful route. It may lead to a dead end. We may have to turn around. But the movement itself expresses something important: our own agency. And that’s where the meaning of Expand the Field changes for me. It isn’t only about perceiving more clearly. Sometimes it’s about beginning to create a path where one doesn’t already exist.
Again, this isn’t about boundless optimism. Having agency doesn’t mean we suddenly have limitless choices. It doesn’t mean we think positively and things magically get better, and it certainly doesn’t mean pretending our constraints aren’t real. We can’t necessarily reopen the road that has closed to us, restore what we’ve lost, or create whatever outcome we desire. Agency can be much smaller than that. It can mean investigating, trying, choosing a direction, and taking a step without knowing where that step might lead. Sometimes the new possibilities we’re looking for emerge only because we acted. Expanding the field can evolve from seeing differently or seeing more clearly to doing something without knowing where it might go, something that then changes what can be seen or done next.
And the idea of creating a new path brings in another limitation we sometimes create for ourselves. Sometimes we judge our lives as small because we’re measuring them against established routes: having a family in a particular way, following a particular career, being independent, being able to travel, having money or status, being productive, reaching the conventional milestones. If we look at our available field and think, “None of these paths leads to the life I’m supposed to have,” we’re limiting our perception again. But perhaps we’re also limiting ourselves by looking only at possibilities that already exist.
If I can extend the travel metaphor a bit farther, we have to wonder where that map came from. Is a particular path legitimate only because other people have walked it before? Does a meaningful life have to resemble the lives we’ve seen other people lead? Some of our definitions of a large enough, important enough, or appropriate enough life seem to come from outside us. I think expanding the field can include questioning the map itself and allowing ourselves to begin a route that isn’t on it.
Sometimes we expand the field because we see something that was there all along. Sometimes we question the common wisdom and allow ourselves to inquire. Sometimes we reorient ourselves inside a landscape, or a life, that has changed.
And sometimes we move.
We begin even though we don’t know where the path will take us. We take the first step. And once we do, we may need to protect the space required to keep going.
Have you seen everything there is to see? Have you questioned the map you’ve been given? And if there is no path to where you want to go, are you willing to take the first step?
Published 12 September 2026 - UNREDUCED™ Pillar Two