In the Bible, there’s a story of a king named David. He was largely responsible for establishing the kingdom of Israel. His big dream was to build a grand temple for his people. However, he wasn’t allowed to build it, because he was a “man of war” and God wanted a man of peace to build the temple.

In the movie The Matrix, Morpheus played a crucial role in freeing Neo from the Matrix, but it’s ultimately Neo who had the power to free all of humanity from the Matrix.

In another Bible story, Moses spent 40+ years liberating the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and wandering around the wilderness to find the Promised Land. But he was eventually told that he wouldn’t be permitted to enter himself.

If you work in design systems, this might feel familiar. As much as we might want to be the ones creating innovative new standards and patterns for others to adopt, that’s not the job. As design system creators, our job is to build a robust, flexible system that empowers the next generation of innovators. We may not always be the ones to create the next groundbreaking product or feature, but we provide the tools that make such innovations possible.

How do we do that?

We can continue look within religion, history, mythology, and pop culture for clues and suggestions.

King David couldn’t build the temple, but his son was allowed to. So he helped gather materials and prepare plans for the temple’s construction.

As Morpheus remarked to Neo, “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

Moses chose to mentor Joshua as his successor to lead the people to the Promised Land.

While it can be humbling to realize we may not be the ones to reach the "Promised Land" of innovation, we can take pride in knowing that our work makes those future breakthroughs possible.