Probability, Potential, and Rumination
It is easier to admire the recognized underdog, but difficult to believe in the unrecognized underdog, to bet on the unrecognized underdog.
It is the same with stock-picking. If you recognize the stock’s potential when it is widely unrecognized, bet on it, hold on to it, then you will make money.
If you bet on it after it is recognized, then you will not make money.
It is the same with hiring people, easier to bet on people with certificates, but difficult to bet on people with skills and no paper to prove.
With proof, you have something to blame if people don’t perform. So, you bet on the top-dog.
And it is the same with love. It is easier to love the perfect, but difficult to love the broken, imperfect, less shiny.
People like people for how they look; And then they leave them for who they are.
People rarely like people for who they are, and leave them for how they look.
A broken inside cannot be fixed by a shiny outside.
To bet on the relationship, to trust and hope that it will work-out in the end is hard, it is anxiety-inducing.
Many of us are bad judges of people. We cannot distinguish from top-dog, underdog, and the no-dog.
Afterall how do you assess?
People change, people who show promise, do not end up promising. People with a lot of promise, do not even show up.
You cannot proof yourself from hurt, because none of us can see the future. We can only predict it. Future is like the branches of a tree, it can diverge a thousand times, and end up into a future you could never predict, never foresee, even in your wildest dreams.
When you understand you cannot control uncertainty, or even predict the extent of uncertainty, there seems to only one option left and i.e. going with the flow. But the very idea of not controlling the future seems so utterly terrible that it gets scrapped off. The very idea of not being in control is anxiety-inducing. Sometimes, coming to terms with uncertainty is like trying to catch hold of the wind in your fist.
You might decide on a course of action, and it could turn out in two ways. So, there is 50% probability of something good happening, and 50% probability of something bad happening.
If the worst-case scenario happens, then at that point, you have to take a further course of action, again, there is a further 50% probability of that bad outcome turns into a better one, or 50% probability it turns to worser outcome.
That means at end of second stage – 25% worst-case possibility, 75% - okay-ish case probability.
If there is a good outcome, then of course, a 2nd course of action is not required.
If we have this in a three-stage scenario, after the 2nd worst outcome, you act again, and then again there is a 50-50 chance of things going good and things going bad, then again, there is only a 12.5% chance of the worst-case scenario, and 87.5% chance of an okay-ish scenario.
With each action, the probability of bad outcomes decreases -> if your action is in the right place.
With each person, with each decision, with each action, we are all trying to assess the potential, the result, the future.
An eternal tug of war between consoling yourself about uncertainty and still going ahead and taking the necessary course of action.
Even then the probability of the worst-case scenario, of everything absolutely going wrong, if very low, but still, the brain obsesses on it.
99% of thing will go right, 1% no one can predict. It obsesses on the 1%. The math does not sit right. The heart and brain become irrational.
You can tell it, there is no evidence of this happening, then how can you believe that it will happen?
Has it happened before? No. Hence, no evidence that it will happen in future. You need to have evidence to believe in something.
Here, there will come another thought.
Will it happen in future? You might go – Just because it has not happened in the past, there is no guarantee that it might not happen in future.
Everytime your anxiety thinks this way. You need to console it like a child, that this thought is not helpful. You should think helpful thoughts rather than unhelpful ones.
Helpful ones – help you cut your losses in future, you have more mental space to be more productive and healthier, in a way helping you future-proof.
Unhelpful ones rob you of your present, rob you of peace, happiness and sleep, making you unproductive and unhealthy, in a way, contributing to the worst-case scenario.
Rumination, overthinking, overburden your nervous system, secrete more cortisol, make you more depressed.
Life has endless possibilities.
Just like there is a possibility of things going bad, there is a possibility of things going right.
You need to think of both, rather than leaning on one side alone.
Plan for the bad, overthink about the good.
If people could manifest happiness, and good possibilities, not many in the world would be depressed or anxious.
Stress rates would not sky rocket.
It is a conscious effort, it takes effort to dwell on good possibilities, to be hopeful of the future, to look at the bright side of life.
Develop your ability to be flexible, to adapt, to be capable, because change and uncertainty is the only thing set in stone.
The more flexible you are, the less burden of life you will carry.
The more security you seek, the more disturbed you will be about every change that happens in your life.
-Sadhguru
The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.
-Brian Tracy
No good sittin' worryin' abou' it. What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does.
-Hagrid (Harry Potter)
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