Shit happens. To all of us. Indiscriminately. 

The question — the only one worth asking — is how we respond to it. 

To be connected, or not to be 

A few days before our move-in date, the internet engineer arrived at our new home to make the connection. Straightforward enough — except the source line sat three houses away, draped across a neighbour’s yard. That neighbour is a religious institution that owns several properties between our home and the nearest telephone pole. 

What followed was 10 long days of assumptions, crossed wires (the human kind), and absolutely no way forward — a tangle involving the telecom company, our people, and an institution that was not about to let strangers anywhere near its property, it seemed. 

Here’s the thing: we were bewildered. How can they be so uncooperative? How mean-spirited does someone need to be to block engineers from raising a ladder to a telephone pole — just half an hour’s work — despite being fully informed of how this was upending their new neighbours’ lives? In 2026, can anyone actually function without internet? (Spoiler: no.) 

And they, it turns out, were equally bewildered. They looked out their window and saw a long ladder on a truck. They assumed digging. Ground being torn up. Nobody had explained a thing. They were worried. Several people tried to help. Nobody landed. 

A ladder became a digger. Reasonable neighbours became obstructionists. Two groups, both completely convinced they were the reasonable ones. And somewhere between those two realities, the truth sat waiting. 

Eight Billion Maps 

I’ve written before about how each of us navigates the world with our own map — built from experience, shaped by interpretation, filtered through every story we’ve ever told ourselves about how things work. Eight billion humans, eight billion maps. 

Knowing this is the first step. Awareness. Application, it turns out, is a different animal entirely. 

For days our robot vacuum sat idle — it needs wifi, and apparently solidarity. Our manual vacuum cleaner was hastily ordered, not yet delivered. Dust and debris accumulated, as did the days and the stress. I couldn’t take coaching sessions from cafés or libraries — my clients deserve privacy. We burned through our mobile data. There was no music in the house. 

And my mind? My mind decided this was the perfect time to run wild. 

It constructed scenarios. Elaborate, catastrophic, entirely ungrounded scenarios. I told it to stop. It declined. I reasoned with it. It wasn’t interested. The stress gave it fuel and it ran with every drop. I was saying things I didn’t truly mean. The unruly mind had completely taken over — and it was not taking questions. 

The Bridge Builders 

What finally worked was one person with genuine social capital and the right ear in the institution. 

Being a strategist, I had quietly recruited a few well-placed humans. One of them worked the edges of this impasse with patience I clearly didn’t have, until he found a way to bring the other party — who had been elusive — finally to a conversation. His credibility was used carefully. The full picture was shared. The ladder was explained to be a ladder, not a digger. 

A consensus was reached. 

Standing on the other side of it, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mind — and its spectacular failure to serve me over those 10 days. I know the different-maps framework. I teach it. I believe in it. And yet, under sustained stress, my mind defaulted to exactly the kind of thinking I’d tell a client to question: they should be more like me. They should know better. This shouldn’t be happening. 

Blaming others. Blaming circumstances. In a loop of arguing and reasoning into the small hours, sleep-deprived and no closer to a solution. 

None of it moved anything forward. 

What Actually Helps 

Taking in a larger landscape helps. Trusting that most people, most of the time, are operating from their own reasonable logic — even when that logic is invisible to you — helps. Looking for the bridge builders and following their lead helps. 

Knowing all this, I still didn’t manage it well. 

And maybe that’s the real note from this particular week: wisdom is not armour. Understanding something deeply doesn’t mean you won’t forget it when things get hard. The map you carry is the one your mind built under pressure, and under pressure, that mind will protect its oldest, most familiar stories. 

What we can do — what I’m still learning to do — is the application. Catch the runaway scenarios a little earlier. Ask what are they seeing? before asking why are they this way? 

And on the days we can’t? We forgive ourselves, find the bridge builders, and try again. 

The internet is not here yet. Next week the technicians come for the third time — whether they’ll be welcomed through or sent away, we’ll see. My hope is that this time, even if things go wrong, I walk in with the biggest smile I can muster and handle whatever comes with grace. 

Wish me luck.