One strong happiness maker is the feeling of control – having a say in your life. However, being able to embrace the messiness of life and the uncontrollable is another strong happiness maker. Yes, exactly this paradox describes the messiness of life well. In the following, I’m unpacking four statements to explain what I mean by the messiness of life:
Life is not linear
Human brains are amazing. A part of the prefrontal cortex can foresee the future (well, anticipate what’s coming – it’s not a crystal ball). We can categorise, organise and plan. We have figured out a lot of causes and consequences. This lets us build action plans to reach a goal. However, we – or at least I – often forget that life is not linear.
Do you also sometimes have this image of a clear trajectory from where you are now to your goal? Something like “I do this and then I do this. Then this will happen and lead to this”. It’s like a stepping stone path. But then “this” doesn’t happen. Or “that” happens. It used to throw me off my stepping stone path, right into the water around it.
I couldn’t understand that my well-thought-through plan hadn’t worked how I wanted – in a linear way. Only when I started to embrace the non-linearity by being very flexible in my plans and accommodating suddenly appearing stepping stones or gaps, I started to enjoy my stepping stone paths. Interestingly, but letting go of the illusion of control my plans started to work a lot better – not the exact plan with the clear trajectory but the rough layout. The non-linearity usually brings helpful surprises that I couldn’t have expected when planning.
There is no right or wrong
What? Yep. Right and wrong are just perspectives. Think about it. What is really wrong? Killing someone? Well, are you also relieved that the hero kills the bad guy in any given action movie? I’m surely not saying that killing is right. Only that the perspective makes it right or wrong.
And what is really right? Helping others? I remember when I had cancer and everybody wanted to help me but very few took action. And then helping me was pretty confronting at times, so it was exhausting for those who did, leaving less energy for themselves, their partners and their kids (if they had any). Is that right? Was it right to help me who was in good health care? Maybe they should have focused their efforts on helping kids who live on the streets.
Do you get my point? Right and wrong is perspective. They come as feelings – this feels right and this feels wrong. My family and friends felt it was right to help me. It feels wrong to kill. The messiness of life is that there is no right and wrong. But that also means that we can change our perspectives. Does it feel wrong to relax when there are so many chores that need to be done? If you let go of control and embrace the messiness of life, you can step away from that feeling of wrong. After all, it’s not wrong per se. And yes, there is no good or bad either.
Between black and white are all shades of the rainbow
This statement ties in with the right or wrong statement. However, it adds the nuances. It highlights that most things lie on a spectrum. Let’s take right and wrong. Often, things don’t feel ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. They feel a little bit right or a little bit wrong. Or take the happy emotion. It can come in sparkling, shiny joy, impressed awe, curious interest or calm serenity.
This statement also reminds me that there are not just two options. Well, there are always at least two options but if you look closely, there are many more. When we feel stressed, we get into the tunnel view with a narrow focus on whatever is stressing us. However, if we can step out of that tunnel view (e.g. with a few deep breaths), we shall see all the other little nuances we could leverage to transform the options into good-for-us options. Do you notice how you often have great advice for others but difficulty seeing that for yourself? When we look at the situations of others, we are not that involved – hence not in a tunnel view – so we can see more options. By letting go of control and accepting that life is messy, we can relax and start to see all those beautiful shades of the rainbow between the black-and-white options.
It’s not all your fault
I like to take responsibility because then I have agency and can change things. However, in the past, I often overdid it and took responsibility for everything. It felt like I had to carry the world on my shoulders.
The messiness of life means exactly that – life is messy. It’s not straightforward, it comes with nuances, there is no right or wrong and it’s not all my fault or responsibility. How can it be? There are so many things happening around me every second that my brain can only register a very small portion consciously. That is the part, I use to make ‘logical’ decisions. However, there is so much more information than I can calculate into my decisions – how can I do it? We can only do the best we can do.
And who knows, maybe messing up a situation wasn’t actually ‘bad’. In the non-linear way of life and those colourful rainbow nuances, it might lead to something ‘good’.