Will you choose the illusion of certainty and control? Or the possibilities that lie just outside?
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For six years after my wife left, I sat alone in my house. I was devastated and depressed. The divorce was unexpected, in spite of our mostly unhappy marriage. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I should have gotten out earlier, but I didn’t. We were both miserable, but neither of us could find the courage to change our situation. Until she did.
It took years for me to appreciate her courage. For the better part of a decade I blamed her for destroying our family, ruining my image and destroying my career as a minister. Yes, I was unhappy and even living a lie as a gay man in our marriage, but I couldn’t bring myself to face all of the uncertainty the drastic change would bring into my life. With the divorce, I was forced to face reality and I certainly wasn’t going to do it willingly.
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Fast-forward 15 years and I am now a change management professional. In my day job I strategize what needs to happen and how to make it happen. Then I strategize the hard part: how to walk people through the changes about to be implemented. While changes in business and processes don’t tend to be as traumatic and personal as individual changes, they’re still difficult. We get emotional, territorial, angry, possessive, and even depressed.
Even when change is in our best interest, we don’t like it.
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Even when change is in our best interest, we don’t like it. As I noted in my business book, one study found that 40% of smokers who’d suffered a heart attack were still smoking a year later. Of 1,200 overweight people who’d suffered a heart attack, they collectively lost only .02% of their body weight on average a year later. In other words, if they weighed 220 pounds, they lost one pound.
Remove life threatening motivations to change and we’re still left with resistance, fear and defiance. Why is that?
Loss of Control
From the moment we’re born we begin to build a wall of perception around us, or the way we see and believe the world to operate. Our parents reinforce expectations and often instill a belief system. We create a cognitive schema, or a “mind map” of what life looks like, how it all works and how we’re supposed to behave. We rely on that mind map, just like most of us rely on our GPS’s to get us from one place to another. We trust it. It works and it should never be questioned.
But then, at one point or another, we’ve all had our GPS’s take us down back roads, way out of the way of where we were going. Sometimes it takes us to our destinations the long way around and other times it doesn’t. If you’re like me, you stare at your device feeling perplexed, wondering if the electronic persona is confused, having a bad day, or is just messing with you.
But that’s what happens when someone implements change, or tries to get us to think differently. Our mind map kicks in, telling us we can’t change because “this is the way we’ve always done it.” We fail to see the benefits.Those detours leave us feeling vulnerable, out of our comfort zones and feeling like we are not in control of our own decisions, destinations or environments.
In my “night job,” I talk to people on a regular basis about how to deal with the fears they face of coming out to their churches, communities and even themselves. They have created a mind map of how things are supposed to be and being a gay man or woman is not part of that map. Others find themselves in relationships with the wrong person, or are unhappy with the lives they are living. They simply can’t let go of the past to move forward.
The reality is that none of us actually have control of our lives. We just think we do.
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The reality is that none of us actually have control of our lives. We just think we do. Our mind maps reinforce the beliefs that if we change something, get honest, or show the world who we truly are, life will come crashing down around us. Like the rogue GPS, we’ll be sent through so many back roads, it’s likely we’ll never get to where we want to go.
Consequently, we hold on tighter to the things that make us miserable. That memory or feeling, even if it’s negative, is familiar. There is no guarantee that the next feeling will be a good replacement. Fear tells us it won’t. Fear tells us that our lives are as good as they’re going to get.
Learning to be Comfortable in Uncertainty
For years, after my wife left, I was lost. I wanted to hold on to the shattered image of who I had been as a minister, but that was no longer my reality. That image of godly perfection, even though it wasn’t true, was the core of who I tried to be and it was even the way I saw myself. With that delusion gone, I struggled to regain composure. I felt an incredible amount of shame as a failed minister and a failed husband.
Over the next six years I went through what I call mental deconstruction. I was no longer sure that anything I believed was true. Things were not working as planned. I guess you could say the car driving around my mind map had crashed. I was not only not going to get where I wanted to go, the destination had been removed.
Mindlessly, at first, I went to work and came home. The television and Hostess products became my best friends until I ballooned to almost 200 pounds. Mentally, I went through periods of disconnecting from reality and suicidal depression.
The feeling of uncertainty can take us in one of two directions: either we feel lost, or we feel empowered. When we’ve suffered instant and traumatic change we tend to feel lost.
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The feeling of uncertainty can take us in one of two directions: either we feel lost, or we feel empowered. When we’ve suffered instant and traumatic change we tend to feel lost. That feeling can last for hours, or it can last for years, as it did in my case.
The flip side is that uncertainty can open possibilities we didn’t see before. Life is not about what happens to us, as much as it is about our perspective of what it all means. My perspective for several years was negative, only focused on what I had lost, not what was waiting for me. Quite frankly, I couldn’t see anything waiting for me but more despair.
The illusion of control and certainty – the antithesis of authenticity – had me firmly in its grip.
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Years after losing my image, I came out, accepted the fact that I couldn’t change who I was, in spite of decades of trying, and I learned to live authentically. It didn’t come naturally. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how to be authentic. The illusion of control and certainty – the antithesis of authenticity – had me firmly in its grip. I made a very conscious effort to change my perspective as I took my world apart and rebuilt it. The rewards far outweighed the wrapper I had created with the illusion of certainty I’d used to create it.
Uncertainty allows us to say with confidence, “I don’t know.” The chances of becoming successful, or failing aren’t predetermined, but the possibilities of success are far greater than the risk of choosing not to change at all.
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The paths many of us find ourselves on didn’t happen by our own choices. Some of us were victims to our circumstances; others of us didn’t know what we didn‘t know. Regardless of where we find ourselves today, change stares us in the face. Change is the one constant we will experience throughout our lives. No matter what we do, change will almost always be the harder choice. The question is, will you choose the illusion of certainty and control? Or the possibilities that lie just outside?
Photo – Flickr/ Kit
It is clear you have faced many internal and emotional challenges throughout your years. I for one am grateful to see you have not only embraced those experiences, but now help others through your wisdom and learnings.
I enjoyed this article very much and we are all rewarded by your kindness, sense of humor and wisdom.
Keep on living the “authentic” Tim. You bring sunshine into our lives!