I’ve noted how this research profoundly changed me and what I think about how life works. And one of the most significant transformations is my appreciation for the inevitable fog of life. Fog, I came to understand, is a common human experience, even for people who otherwise seem to have great clarity about what to make of their lives. And if episodes of fog enveloped even people in this study, none of us should judge ourselves harshly when we wake up one day to find ourselves befuddled and confused in the fog.

But as I got deeper into this research, observing the vast differences across the people in this study and how they flourished at their best when life lined up with their encodings and what fed their inner fire, I gradually began to change. Subtly at first, I began to shift away from trying to change people into what I wanted them to be. Simultaneously, I shifted toward finding or creating the best possible match between their encodings and their responsibilities. It didn’t happen overnight, it was more of a managerial form of simplex stepping. I’d sense something about a person’s encodings, and then I’d make a shift in their responsibilities to fir those encodings. Then I might observe something else about their encodings, discovering something wonderful about them when they thrived in a task, and I’d make another shift in responsibilities. Together, we essentially simplex stepped toward them coming into frame in a seat on the bus.

By its very nature, this study relies on people with highly visible accomplishments. I worry that some readers might misinterpret this as an implicit worthiness hierarchy that valorizes achieving fame over taking more unseen paths. I also worry that some of the people in the study can feel so unapproachable in what they made of their lives that readers might discount the relevance of learning from them, or be left wondering, “Well, their lives are interesting, but could I ever do what they did?” I share that feeling. Studying Charles Colson made me feel somewhat intimidated by the standard he lived to after prison.

You and I don’t need to try to be exactly like any of the people in this study. The relevant question, as it pertains to this chapter, is not whom do we want to emulate, but what responsibilities do we feel compelled to choose? All of us, no matter what we do in life, and no matter how the roulette wheel spins, can choose responsibilities beyond ourselves. It doesn’t matter how many people you touch with the responsibilities you choose; it might be many, or it might be only one or a few. What matters is the very act of honoring a self-chosen responsibility.

One might expect that I’d wrap up a book like this with a set of recipes for living or a list of ten steps to a better life, or a bevy of helpful prescriptions. The findings of the research and the ethos of this book stand against the very idea of doing that. You might have come to greatly admire many of the people in this study (as did I), but that doesn’t mean you should try to become exactly like any of them. Don’t confuse admiration with prescription, role models with cookie-cutter templates.