Understanding Change
You have heard it before. Much of what we do is equivalent to re-arranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We have expectations based on our knowledge and history. Our projections are usually a predictably straight line based on these reasonable expectations.
Life is not linear or reasonable. Icebergs happen.
The future is not obligated to be reasonable. Even at a time such as this where we see huge change everywhere around us, we expect to keep living much as we have been living.
Worry is not a solution. Projections and educated guesses about vicious cycles of calamity or virtuous cycles of unending progress are equally suspect. If the past is any guide, all of the guesses and intelligent prognostications will be hugely wrong. In essence, virtually everyone is always looking in the wrong direction.
The big changes that are coming will arrive unexpected by everyone but a few with a lucky guess. No one will have paid much attention to those few until after an event - then they will be afforded far too much attention.
It will not be just one event and then everything will return to normal, there will be other events, equally unforeseen.
Take normal precautions, they may be appropriate. But the greatest precaution is personal - learn to adapt to the unexpected. Make yourself a generalist, not a specialist. Discover new ideas, explore new territories, experience different lifestyles. Do not over expose or over commit yourself to one scenario.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain
There is only one thing we know for sure - what we now know will someday change dramatically; and then some later day it will happen again.
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller
.
Life is not linear or reasonable. Icebergs happen.
The future is not obligated to be reasonable. Even at a time such as this where we see huge change everywhere around us, we expect to keep living much as we have been living.
Worry is not a solution. Projections and educated guesses about vicious cycles of calamity or virtuous cycles of unending progress are equally suspect. If the past is any guide, all of the guesses and intelligent prognostications will be hugely wrong. In essence, virtually everyone is always looking in the wrong direction.
The big changes that are coming will arrive unexpected by everyone but a few with a lucky guess. No one will have paid much attention to those few until after an event - then they will be afforded far too much attention.
It will not be just one event and then everything will return to normal, there will be other events, equally unforeseen.
Take normal precautions, they may be appropriate. But the greatest precaution is personal - learn to adapt to the unexpected. Make yourself a generalist, not a specialist. Discover new ideas, explore new territories, experience different lifestyles. Do not over expose or over commit yourself to one scenario.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain
There is only one thing we know for sure - what we now know will someday change dramatically; and then some later day it will happen again.
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable." - Helen Keller
.
Labels: educated guesses about the future, Helen Keller, life not linear, Mark Twain on safe harbors, unreasonable expectations
<- email this journal entry
1 Comments:
Thanks for tthis
Post a Comment
<< Home