Wait and See

There is an old Chinese proverb that goes something like this: There was once a man who had a son who had grown, and the two of them lived simple lives on a farm. One day their horse ran away. When the neighbor found out about it he said, “Oh, bad luck.” And the father replied, “We’ll wait and see.” The next day the horse returned with a herd of wild horses. The neibhbor said, “Oh, good luck.” And the father replied, “We’ll wait and see.” The next day the son tried to ride one of the horses and was bucked off and broke his leg, the neigbor said, “Oh, bad luck.” And the father said, “We’ll wait and see.” The day after that the army came through the town, pressing young men into the service of the military but could not take the young man because of his broken leg. The neighbor said, “Oh, good luck.” And the father said, “We’ll wait and see.” And the story continues for all of time.

The moral of the story is that we cannot see, at our current place in time, what effect some event will have on our lives. We cannot judge events as individual happenings, free of everything else. And we cannot judge how something might affect us in a week, or a month, or a year or a decade based on how it is affecting us today. Things change. Everything changes. And keeping an open mind to see what changes is the only way to live. Once we find ourselves locked into a particular way of thinking, once we cannot move because of mental ossification, then our lives become smaller and filled with less meaning. If we cannot be open to something new, something different, even something that challenges who we are, then our lives are lost and they’re not worth living.

I cannot imagine living a life where I knew all the answers. I spend a lot of time thinking. A lot. My days are filled with varying degrees of reading, writing, watching movies, listening to information in a variety of forms and teaching. Most of what I do is input. I am filling my brain with as much information as I can pack into it. The problem for me is that with all this information things just keep getting more complicated, not less. And so consequently I’ve become less sure of any one thing or any one issue. I’m just not sure. I’ve read and heard and seen too much to think something is simple and has a simple answer. And so I think some more. I read some more and I listen some more. I’m just hoping to figure it all out, or given that I can’t figure it all out, maybe just figure something out. Something small. Anything really. I’d be happy.

And so when I meet people who are incredibly sure about something I view them with a mix of skepticism and awe. I shake my head trying to clear the cobwebs away and understand what they understand. I’m not a brilliant person. I’m just average. I do my best with what I’ve got. But one thing that can’t be said about me is that I think too little, that I read too little and that I know too little. So when I meet someone who seems to have the answers I’m a bit suspicious. I suspect that they don’t really have the answers they claim to. I suspect that they got tired of looking and thinking and reading and finally just made up their mind. They made a decision and became comfortable with no new information. And now they look smart. “This is how it is.” They say with confidence. “I know it for sure.” Wow. What guts it would take. What confidence. To be able to say with assurity that something, anything, is a given way.

In the end though I look at these people with pity. They have given up; they have given in. It’s easier to allow your mind to solidify than to keep it flexible and ready for new information. And so I guess I see them as mentally handicapped. But the handicap is something they could control if they wanted. It’s a self-imposed limitation. It’s just easier not to challenge themselves any more. It’s easier to not think about that topic any more. I’ve decided. That’s it. It’s done.

And it’s strange because once someone has made this decision to not let any new information in it makes them look confident in their decisions and they look smart. The doors of their minds are sealed tightly to keep out any new information, but on the outside they speak their mind with confidence knowing that nothing is going to keep them from a vocal opinion, not even new information. These people spew their opinions anywhere and everywhere with a freedom given only to young children talking to strangers and we listen to them. We give them our ear, our time and our money.

How can it be that we punish people for changing their minds. Politicians are punished when they change their minds. Now, I understand there is a difference between political expediency and intellectual flexibility. But, once a politician has changed their mind on something we find it negative. We don’t like it. We want our politicians rock solid, unmoving, foundational. And in the end this need that we have makes our politicians afraid to speak their minds when they’ve changed them. Which creates mistakes.

We must accept and even embrace newness. We must be comfortable with the idea that we may not always know the answers. We may be adrift sometimes. And that’s okay. Being adrift allows us time to think and meditate. When we’re adrift we need to remember the things that were right when we went adrift. Use those things to keep us safe and sturdy until we can reach another place of safety and surety until we are once again set adrift. Expecting that being adrift won’t happen is foolhardy. We must expect change, expect unsurity, expect differences. And in expecting those things we won’t be thrown when they actually happen. And they will happen. They will.

Embracing change will help us live better. Expecting that things will stay the same is a form of madness. How can we expect our lives to follow any given path? How can we expect people to not change? How can we expect to have anything we own, use, watch or know about to stay solid, unmoving and unchanging? Only a fool would expect as much. But we are all fools. We all expect our lives, and everything in them, to stay the same. And when change happens it unnerves us.

It’s interesting that when change happens to children it’s exciting. When change happens to adults it’s unsettling. What happens to the brain between childhood and adulthood? It’s simply a matter of flexibility. The more we use our brains the more likely we are to stay flexible and fresh, inviting change rather than avoiding it. We have to look at each new experience as a chance to grow and expand ourselves. We must welcome change as a way of understanding ourselves and our world better. We must see change for what it is – a blessing. It helps us grow.

Is change uncomfortable? Absolutely. Just like exercise, new information works our brains in new ways, straining the muscles of the brain. We must learn to adjust and figure out what this new information is doing to our brains. We must adjust ourselves to this new exercise, allow our minds time to cope and then move on. Using exercise as a metaphore for information in the brain helps us to understand that that information can ultimately help us to become stonger and even more flexible. But there is no gain without pain. Which means with each new piece of information there will be soreness in the brain. We will want to quit because it’s easier to not exercise than it is to exercise. But with each repetition of the new exercise we will get stronger and more confident. And once we’ve become used to that exercise we move on to a new one starting the process over. Never quitting we become stronger, more flexible and more able to handle any situation that comes our way.

Change is a way of life. Judging change as either positive or negative is a waste of time. Ignoring the fact that change is a way of life is childish and stupid. Ignoring change is like a child covering its eyes, pretending not to see the vegetables still on its plate. So why not dive in? Why not do everything we can to enjoy the change? And the only way to enjoy change is to accept change. Change must be embraced in order to be enjoyed. We must come to a new way of thinking. We must understand that change is real and change is happening, every day to every one of us. And those who accept that change will happen are happier than those who resist it. Resisting change is foolish.

I am not promoting a political agenda. Being conservative or liberal is not what I’m talking about. You can be the most conservative person int eh world and still accept that grandchildren will grow up, that food will not always be cooked the same and that buildings will be torn down and new ones will replace them. Your political views are yours to keep. But accepting the assurance that change will happen is universal. Change happens to all of us, to everyone, throughout all time.

Accepting change will change your life. It will make you happier and more comfortable and certainly more mentally flexible. We all know those people who freak out when something doesn’t go as planned. Plans change and they can’t deal with it. They loose themselves in the fact that things aren’t going the way they expected, change is happening all around them, and they can’t do anything about it and so they despair, freak out, become angry or despondent. These people are living their lives with an expectation that things will go as planned. And while we all know that things don’t often go as planned, we often expect them to. Isn’t it interesting that even knowing other peoples plans didn’t happen as they expected them to we still expect our plans to go as we planned. This paradigm shift is vital for our survival.

The one thing we know about the future of this world is it won’t be like it was yesterday. Tomorrow, literally the day after today, will be different than it was today. Things will change that we couldn’t have anticipated. So, if we cannot anticipate the actual change, why not anticipate change in general? If we are to prepare ourselves and our children for the future then we must be prepared for change. What change? You may ask. But the answer is, we just don’t know. We cannot predict what changes may come, but we can predict that change itself will come. Will those changes be good or bad. We’ll just have to wait and see.