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Used To Think

When I was younger, I was in wonder a lot, and still am. The world was this big crazy machine and the older folks had it all figured out. I, too, would one day be like them, and have things all figured out, or enough things figured out to fit in. 
Well.....
Some of that figuring out has occurred, it most certainly has, but whoa- there's a lot left that I haven't figured out and at this point I strongly suspect that nobody my age has figured it all out either. Some contemporaries of mine are building airplanes, at the helm of huge corporations with tens of thousands of people under their command, and running countries.
Hope that doesn't break any young 'uns' bubbles! 
Truth is, the more we learn the more we find out that there's a lot more to learn. Yeah, we got the surface level stuff down, most if not all of us. That's the easy part. But beneath that level we start to see complexity and wonder how we could have ever been so bold or so brash as to proclaim with conviction that "I (or we) know how it works!" because while at some level that may be true, at another level it may be totally false. 
Take any big, complicated system. A modern car engine, tourism, or even preparing enchiladas. If you break it down to its component parts, simplify it in the extreme, you can say with total conviction that A plus B equals C because there are cars, tourists, and enchiladas. However, variables tend to exist inside those components so the equation becomes more like A plus B is likely to equal C. This is why every car runs differently, planes get overbooked, and there are ten thousand Mexican restaurants serving different tasting enchiladas.

Betcha every one of those jeeps runs differently

Kukuh Napaki- Unsplash.com


A lot of factors in life are hidden, not like in basic math or life, which starts out as fairly understandable but rapidly turns into theory the further into complexity you go. I think the internet runs on theory more than it does on structure anymore because of all the security patches and work-arounds that have been introduced. You could definitely say the same thing for that vague concept called 'The Economy'.
In the business world you get your rose-colored glasses taken off very quickly because there's more intrigue ('variables') going on in that environment than in Game Of Thrones. Even though you might try and figure that continuously shifting arena out you just might end up back at the beginning sometimes because things get introduced that shift loyalties, priorities, and processes drastically.

Kind of scary, how little you find you actually know when you get to be the age where you're supposed to know and people are turning to you for answers. "Hey- I don't know!" is not the response they're wanting to hear. "I can offer you some advice” you may compassionately say, "that might help you to work out the rest of the situation yourself" because you at your age know that unless you're in their exact situation you cannot accurately appraise it, nor can you take into account the many variables that exist, variables which of course they may be only partially aware of.

Which leads me to present some sage advice right now. If anybody tells you that they know it all, turn and run! Figuratively, not literally. Get a second opinion. Maybe even a third. Because everybody's take is going to be different due to the unique ways they wrestled with the universally complicated situations of raising kids, investing, running a business, dealing with coworkers, buying property, etc.. What they know might have worked exceedingly well for them but things have probably changed since then, somehow, in some way, and the same solution applied might not take this time around. 
So a bit of advice and a “Good luck!” is all I can give most people. Play the poker hand or the chess game best you can.

But for those that are interested, I would urge you to read and practice everything you can about something that is touted as ‘new’ but is actually very, very old. Manifestation is the key word. Learn everything you can about that. It just might be a game changer for you.