February 1, 2025
Facing Reality
One of the hardest things, I find, is facing reality without falling for the easy explanations that help relax the tension of not knowing.
If you look at the current stage of human development, you'll notice that we often have simple answers for very complex problems. The issue with this is that when we encounter complexity, we tend to seek out the next easy answer, instead of addressing why something doesn't work.
We are largely blind to our own operating system, which causes us to look at the world from a limited perspective. We look to the right, then to the left, never fully understanding either position because it requires awareness of where we are looking from.
Confirmation bias keeps us seeking evidence that supports our current view, regardless of its truth. Our need to be right makes us blind to arguments that challenge our view, and our desire for comfort leads us to prefer easy answers that allow us to relax, even if they don’t actually solve anything.
Take issues like climate change, the state of the global economy, environmental pollution, the upcoming workforce crisis, and the likely disappearance of many jobs. For most people, these topics lead to overwhelm, and the conclusion that we should simply keep doing what hasn’t worked so far.
Why is this? It’s because we struggle to face reality.
Our typical patterns of behavior include distraction, getting hopeful, working harder, speeding up, getting lethargic, looking away, or shutting down completely.
But none of these survival strategies will contribute to solving the problem.
Anyone who is truly looking will see the futility of trying to ignore what's in front of us.
We somehow hope that by putting our heads in the sand, we can avoid facing the challenges ahead, like a child closing their eyes to avoid the shadow on the wall. But the truth is, life isn’t a shadow on the wall—it’s a moving, unstoppable force that won’t care whether we close our eyes.
So, what can we do?
This is where the power of being human comes in. You have the ability to create a context for yourself that allows you to face anything without closing your eyes.
You can create a context where your biases don't define you, where your patterns don’t control you, and where you become the space in which solutions can emerge.
The missing link isn’t knowing what to do—it’s having the courage to take a stand, to be the space for creative insight and real problem-solving, and to engage with the challenges that life throws at you.
This is what it means to have the power to transform. Not by closing your eyes and hoping everything disappears, but by changing the context and seeing challenges as opportunities. Life isn’t the end; it’s a call for adventure. It’s an invitation to be bigger, not to crumble.
Life is as it is, and people do what they do. But you can transform what all of that means at every moment.