A life-in-balance piece. How often, when faced with a situation, do you assess all the possible outcomes, look at your input required to achieve each of those outcomes, decide, plan your actions accordingly and then carry them out? Or do you prefer to leave things to chance, to see how it will all play out?
I'm generally of the second school; I've seen time after time that chasing after an outcome, taking all the necessary steps to get what I want, proves futile because events have a habit of taking their own course. Work-wise, for example, planned events get cancelled through no fault of mine (Covid, war); had I pushed far harder to have make things happen, they wouldn't have happened anyway; I'd have wasted time (that becomes an increasingly valuable commodity with each passing year). Listening to intuition is helpful - you're not just floating with the stream but making small course corrections requiring a minimum of effort but which have a big effect on the end result.
Proactiveness is defined as "tending to initiate change rather than reacting to events". Serendipity is defined as "fortunate chance", in this case, it means not initiating change, but hoping - willing - events to go your way.
I know people - I've worked with several like this - who have a tendency to over-plan, and then get themselves into a state of stress because they focus too much on trivial details and timetables, tripping over themselves when things go awry. Taking it easy is something that comes with time; you've coped with panics, you've smoothed over cock-ups, you've managed expectations, you've trodden carefully around difficult egos. If you can take it easy when you're still in your 40s, you're doing well. Took me longer, but I'm no longer panicked by deadlines or freaked out by things not being within my control.
A big spur to proactiveness is uncertainty avoidance. Ambiguity requires resolution - and so proactive measures are taken. Not always the wisest path to take - often, the ambiguous situation will solve itself without the need for a difficult phone-call or conversation that carries with it the risk of falling out with someone.
Chance plays a huge role in our life. My father, towards the end of his life, would ask me rhetorically, "why was I always so lucky?" I think he knew the answer. Intuitively, he felt that he had guided it thus.
"Let it be" - Paul McCartney (Let it Be, the Beatles, 1970)
"The world won't get no better if we just let it be" - McFadden & Whitehead (Wake Up Everybody, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, 1975).
Who's right? The Beatles or the Blue Notes? Maybe the balance is somewhere in between letting it be and taking proactive measures to improve things.
This time last year:
Consciousness in other creatures
This time two years ago:
The balance between the spiritual and the material
This time three years ago:
Rzeszów and Poznań
This time seven years ago:
Spiritual mentors and spiritual leaders
In memory of me
This time ten years ago:
Cleaning sensors on my Nikons
Changing seasons and one's samopoczucie
This time 12 years ago:
Stunning late-winter beauty
[these are among my most gorgeous winter photos ever]
This time 13 years ago:
Lenten fare - Jeziorki gumbo
This time 14 years ago:
Digging up Dawidowska
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