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The old maxim goes: It’s not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens to us, that determines our success in life. Even in our great age of automation and information, it’s hard to accept that much of what happens in life is beyond our control. We’ve been making plans our whole life - what we’d do, where we’d live, how we’d win - and conditioned ourselves to think everything and anything is within our control.
Except that it’s not.
As I write this I’m wrapping up two days of utter control-lessness. I’m sitting on the train, listening to a lady loudly melt-down on the telephone with an operator: Something’s wrong with her ticket, and she’s certain - certain! - that she bought it right, printed it right and is reading it right. Now just what is the operator going to do about it (we’re all wondering this, in fact) because there’s no way she’s getting off this train. Oh, she’s all ears to hear the explanation, by golly!
Because she’s in control.
Twenty-four hours ago, the plane I was on diverted to Washington, DC just five minutes before we should have landed in Newark. Bad weather, low fuel and the end of the day combined for a perfect storm in the Northeast. The Captain told us it the FAA controlled the airport. The flight attendants told us the computer would control our flight reassignments. The ground crew couldn't unload our luggage because the rules controlled when they could work in the rain. With so little control, what were passengers to do, other than fasten their belts and prepare for the worst?
Or the best!
How we handle life’s unexpected situations is a sign of our maturity, our ability and of most of all our philosophy. It’s a matter of attitude more than anything else: certainly no amount of knowledge, power or money was going to change Mother Nature’s mind. It’s also a matter of possibility: The ability to see a situation and decide between crisis and opportunity - for change, for creativity, for adventure - that gives us the greatest power to weather the storm.
When we can go with the flow.
To go with the flow requires us to give up control, but it doesn’t mean we lose sight of our goals. There’s great value in learning how to become comfortable with uncomfortable. In our careers, we must master not just the rules, but the detours. We learn more from the deals that go awry than those that go smoothly; that’s something customers will pay for, and keeps us ahead of mere machines. In our personal lives, most growth comes in the form of opportunities masquerading as trouble. Or at least discomfort, as the route to better health or wealth isn’t always easy. Over time, we learn not only to deal with difficulties that are thrown at us: We learn to shake things up on our own - to disrupt ourselves, to take purposeful risks, to make a break for it - when others would be satisfied with the predictable.
To master our lives, we learn to turn disappointment into adventure. We recognize when “figuring it out” is more valuable than going “according to plan.” We remind ourselves that we’ve been in tougher situations before, and gain confidence to try again next time, too. And we come to realize that a change of plans isn’t always a matter of good and bad.
Sometimes it’s just different, and it’s up to us to enjoy.
Unlike the acorn, we have the power to act; we are more than a list of prescribed moments.
The greatest value comes disguised as the unknown; make surprise the hallmark, not the exception of your experience.
Turning unexpected moments into unplanned adventures is the sign of a mind ready for the most life can offer.
Back in the airport, I watched the thunderstorm beyond the window. While others lined up in the Crisis Line, to struggle and rage and complain and demand, I jumped into an uber. A few taps of some apps and I checked into a hotel for the evening. Over dinner, I received a text that the flight was delayed - an hour, two more, then overnight. No matter: I wasn’t going along for that ride anyway. WIth an unexpected stop in our nation’s capital, I’d booked the last train to New York, so I could spend an unplanned day on an adventure.
To reflect on the Founders, who had weathered far greater storms than this.
Of course, not everyone is comfrotable going with the flow. Plenty of people prefer control all the time. They see change as a problem; the unexepected as unfair. Their response to surprise is shock, and sometimes anger. Life becomes a struggle to fix everything, unable to just let things play out in their own way.
While I listened to the lady yelling at the train operator, I wonder what it is all for: Certainly she couldn’t be enjoying the moment: When she finally took a breath, something amazing happened. The operator figured it out. A simple glitch, apparently; no harm done. Her ticket was fine; here was a nice seat by the window. Calm has been restored to the carriage.
One wonders though what she may do, if we encounter a delay on the tracks ahead.
But for now, for some of us, life flows on.