Notes on Uncertainty and Letting Go

To my dad, who is prone to believing in the end of the world. Everything is going to be just fine, even if it isn't.

The Modern World

SO APPARENTLY, the future might suck. We could have a global depression. We could have wars, there could be terrorists, people could be poor. Your neighbor could burn your house down. Your dog might die. There might be hurricanes or blizzards, or maybe even meteors, the earth might be heatin' up. You could break your leg. Or both. Someday, if you're lucky, you might just end up dead.

So what.

Modern society could be criticized in a lot of different ways, but in my view the biggest problem it's created is the expectation that life should be comfy, cozy and secure. You'll get your welfare check and your white picket fence and 2.4 cars and then you'll get your pensions and your medications and drugs so that you never feel any pain. That's the default. That's the expectation. And it's a problem.

The problem is not that it's impossible. In fact, we've almost done it. Up until recently, if you lived in America or Europe, or you happen to have a few bankrolls lying around, that's the life you got. The problem is that a comfy cozy life sounds so good on paper but ends up being so weak in the end.

Why are the richest countries the ones with the most depression, unhappiness, suicide, and negativity? The more money you have, the more problems you can simply buy off instead of having to deal with. And dealing with problems is as fundamental to life as joy and happiness. Modern society has tried to skim the cream off of life, taking just the positive and eliminating the negative. People forget that you can't have one without the other. The fairy tale doesn't work when there is peace and no enemies and the princess just walks up to the bored knight and snaps her fingers. Dissatisfaction and anxiety fill the hole where no other problems exist.

Viewpoints and Expectations

Turn on the TV and watch the news with me for a bit. Let's see - over the weekend, we had a grandma get murdered, a three car crash on the highway, third quarter financials came out, some new fears have the debt market spooked, something about Iran or Estonia happened, and Congress stuck a thumb up its ass. Now let's get a typical reaction to each of these stories. Granny - 'Oh my gosh, that's terrible, how could somebody do something like that? That makes me so mad.' Car crash - 'Oh that's so sad. Just awful.' Haywire in the markets - 'Oh boy I hope I don't lose my job.' Iran - 'Oh that's so scary! Sheesh why do they have to do that?' Congress - 'Oh they make me so mad. How could they be so dumb?'

Those are all legitimate reactions. A car crash is pretty sad. Losing your job would suck. The world is a scary place. But when you expect these things not to happen, you're set up for disappointment every time. Millions of miles are driven every single day, so crashes are inevitable. Billions of dollars flow around the economy, so layoffs and downturns will happen. Get used to it.

It can also be very difficult to take yourself out of your own shoes. Call a terrorist or a murderer inhuman if you will, but they are just as human as you are, and you'd be shocked at the things every single one of us is capable of in different circumstances. Call Congress a bunch of babies, but you would do the same things if you were there. The structure is set up to reward that behavior, with party lines and lobbyists and government funding and corporate influences. Call Ahmedinejad what you will, but he's not crazy.

You can rest assured that these things will continue in the future. There will always be a million and one things to be scared of and things to be pissed off about, even if the names and faces change.

Living

These things will sometimes affect your life. And there's nothing you can do about it. But can change how you react to it, and that makes all the difference.

If you realize that bad things will happen, if you allow them to happen without diving headfirst into denial or anger or sadness or all three, then you can start to really appreciate the other side of the coin and all the good things life has to offer.

If you got laid off and kicked out of the country and were living poor, would you spend your time being angry and sad or would you enjoy life? There are a whole lot of very poor people who are very happy and content. You can still have friends and family, you can laugh, you can live. If a family member dies, would you spend years in denial and bitterness at the unfairness of life, or would you celebrate their life, mourn the loss and move on? If you die tomorrow, how are you going to react to that?

Basically, if you know the difference between what you can control and what you can't, if you know that people are human and everybody's circumstances are different, and if you can stop from clinging on to expectations and what you have, then life can really improve. It's something I definitely need to work on, but those are my thoughts for today.