So, Steve Jobs said “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” But if you are focused (i.e. doing what’s relevant to the end goal, assuming you have one) then shouldn’t the dots be connecting in some way as you proceed, otherwise, you are doing it wrong? Or is it that only after a certain point in life the dots need to start connecting?
The more I think about it, the more I want to understand what he meant. I have read that after coming back to Apple he stopped majority of the projects and focused on the specific things that we are seeing in the market now. Isn’t it possible that some of those now stopped projects could have “connected” in the future in some way?
I can relate to his thought about looking back and seeing the dots connect. In the past I have tinkered with a lot of different things because I enjoyed them, e.g. doing .NET programming while exploring Linux. But this odd combination is now proving very useful because it is providing me with a very unique perspective and giving me the ability to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do if I was very focused on one technology or platform.