Many people harbour this shocking illusion that they are somehow in control, not only is this unwise from the perspective of wasting energy planning for things that may never happen, but also leads to a lot of emotional dis-appointment.
For example, the man or woman who longs after marriage, but cant find someone right for them. You cant force it, you have to respect the chaos; you can make a person marry you but you cant make a bad marriage last, at least not in happiness. So maybe you have to wait til you are 60 years old for that person to come into your life, its worth the wait, and you want to be available, surely.
We are all making it up as we go along, its one of the great levellers in life, some people get lucky and others flock to them desparate to know how they did it. The worse it is for these 'successful' people when they fail, as they became convinced they had the secret, yet they never did, just some luck.
The best we can do is recognise when the chaos gives us a chance to excercise our minute control, and to take that chance with 100% comittment, and hope the sand does not shift beneath our plans. Flexibility is the best technique we have, for staying alive until we die :)
Nice put. I think we need to hold onto the belief that we are in control because anything else really is scary.
Absolutely, when humans were hunter-gatherers, we didn't know when our next meal was coming or what it would be, then farming made food a bit more reliable and allowed permanent dwelling, but knowing when to plant and when to harvest was important; Astronomy lead to advancements and bore organized religions. You may notice religion is heavily centred around certainty and always knowing what to do. Pretty much everything since then has been an attempt to control the chaos, but even as we are now, at any moment an asteroid could hit the earth or a nearby supernova could almost instantly erase us out of existence.
Control is an illusion we cannot live without, we don't want to be hunter-gatherers anymore.
well said