Posts Tagged: the illusion of inevitability

“The Illusion of Inevitability”

On May 2, 2019 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer


In almost every area of our lives, inevitability is an illusion.  But it’s a very popular and widespread illusion, so it is difficult to recognize that it is an illusion.

It operates in the good areas of our lives.  I love and am happy with my wife, so I speak of “forever,” even though I know that one of us is likely to die before the other, and that it is quite possible that we will both die eventually.

I think that it is inevitable that I’m going to continue playing softball (in the senior league) until I’m eighty.  In reality, I don’t know if I’ll be playing when I’m sixty-nine.  (I’m sixty-eight, and our first game today was rained out.  I was happy.  This does not bode well for my illusion of inevitability, even at the age of sixty-eight.)

On and on it goes.  About the only thing that is truly inevitable is change.  And I don’t particularly like change.

The illusion of inevitability also operates in the bad areas of our lives.  I want to waste time that I don’t have on projects that don’t matter.  Eventually, I talk myself into it.  Wasting time becomes inevitable, even though it really isn’t.

There are still some Girl Scout Tagalong cookies left.  It becomes inevitable that I will open the box, and have “just one!”  One cookie becomes one row, then the whole box.

Once I’ve convinced myself that something is inevitable, I can do it with a not-too-bad conscience.  Why?  Because I had bought into the lie of inevitability.

We all have illusions.  The key is not to allow the illusions to have us.

The first step in vaporizing any illusion is recognizing it for what it is—an illusion.

And the second step?  Ignoring it, and doing the next right thing.  Ignoring reality is insanity.  Ignoring illusions is another way of speaking of sanity.

I think I’ll live in reality today.  It isn’t easy, but it’s a whole lot easier than buying into the illusion of inevitability.

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