Does 2025 seem to you to contain more uncertainty than any year that came before? The general sentiment I hear expressed seems to confirm that many of us feel this way. But that sentiment ignores several incontrovertible truths.
It’s not hard to see how we come to the conclusion that there’s more uncertainty than ever. Just look at a newspaper or listen to the news. The world seems to be falling apart, civil society and democracy appear to be at risk, people are screaming at each other over the smallest things, there are wars all over, including in places we never expected to see them.
Things simply seem to be less controllable, stable, and predictable than they used to be. Is that really true?
We’ve learned to predict what’s to come based in large part on what has already been, and how we’ve organized those past events and patterns in our minds. One of the chief functions of memory is to provide an illusion of stability in a constantly changing world. Which makes me wonder: has the world ever been as stable and predictable as the picture of it we carry in our minds?
Here’s the funny thing about stability and predictability. The world each of us creates in our minds is absolutely predictable and stable right up to the moment when a change happens, and we watch predictability and stability fly out the window.
Each of us has been dope-slapped repeatedly by failing to see that what’s predictable and stable one minute can change in a heartbeat.
Though it may be difficult to believe at first, the year ahead of us contains no less uncertainty than any period of time that came before, because, however much we’d like to believe otherwise, everything is always uncertain.
Though that may sound like some horrible pronouncement about the world we live in, it’s not. Life has always been unpredictable, and always will be. And you know what? Whether or not you recognize it, you’ve made it this far in your life without actually knowing what was going to happen next, so it’s not like I’m suggesting you need to develop skills you don’t have.
It’s a question of recognizing you’ve made it this far without knowing, so you can probably keep going under the same circumstances.
It’s the unexamined expectation of predictability and stability that undoes us. As we enter 2025, my wish for each of us is that we find peace with unpredictability, which, after all, is as much a part of our lives as gravity.
When we understand we were designed to live in an unpredictable world, we were designed to respond to rapidly changing circumstances, something becomes clear. This is exactly the way things are supposed to be, exactly the way things have always been, and exactly the way they will always be.
Unpredictability can be and probably has been the driver for some of the most fantastic things you’ve ever created. Make friends with it and see it for what it is: something that can either fuel your accomplishments, or something that can make you feel crushed by life.
You get to choose which role it will fill for you.
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