All of us tell stories about how things will turn out. We share them with certainty and pride in their level of detail. They give us a false assurance that we will not face uncertainty.
Our stories about how things will turn out give us the confidence either to proceed or run from a decision that we are about to make. It either feeds our fears or gives us the courage to persevere. For we can convince ourselves of anything when we are the only voice in the room that we pay attention to.
The story we never know for sure is what will actually happen in the future.
With age comes a realization that very little turns out the way we thought. There are always surprises and disappointments. The hope is that both are manageable allowing us to see the opportunities created by either reaction.
What actually happens is so perishable in our memory. We lose track of the stories we told before hand and miss a valuable opportunity to see just how right or wrong our intuition was.
Just think if we could keep score silently about our story telling and beliefs that lead up to decisions against what actually happens. I bet, over time, you would get better as you began to see where your stories, in advance of the future, get side tracked leading you astray.
It’s frustrating to know that there is always a story that we never know for sure how it ends. What actually happens always is different in some way than what we expected.
The sooner we understand that this is common, the sooner our frustration subsides and the sooner we can begin to judge our intuition about the future, making us (hopefully) a better decision maker as time marches on.