Reframe Uncertainty (3): Happy Ending with Uncertainty First

Transitioning from the familiarity of captivity to the unknowns of the desert, the exiles were unsure if God was going to make good on his promises. Are we loved or are we damned? Will the Promised Land be worth the long, arduous journey rife with uncertainty? Or will adversity and hardship divert the Israelites from the good God has planned for them? Spoiler alert: There is a happy ending. But happy endings don’t often come without navigating times of uncertainty first.
 
Uncertainty provides rescue from being stuck in the familiar ways of life that keep us from moving forward into the purposes of God. Wandering into the wilderness of the unknown is God’s divine reorientation, from what we know in the present to what God knows about the future. That’s why God chose manna to satisfy the appetite of the Israelites for forty years instead of milk shakes and cheeseburgers. “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions” (Exodus 16:4).
 

- Shelly Miller, Searching for Certainty: Finding God in the Disruptions of Life, 2020.

Reframe Uncertainty (2): Moses in the Time of Uncertainty

Not enough was the cry of the Israelites in response to the fear of uncertainty threaded throughout the Exodus story. I am not enough was Moses’ knee-jerk reaction to God’s request from a burning bush to lead the Israelites out of captivity. Not enough is ultimately our deepest fear when we encounter the wilderness of the unknown as we journey through life. Maybe right now, as you hold this book in your hands, you fear that you won’t have enough time, food, money, influence, approval, friendships, support—you fill in the blank. What is missing in your life that God is not enough for you? What situations are you attempting to solve with self-reliance instead of reliance on God?
 
Three days after God provides a miracle in parting the Red Sea, ushering the Israelites into safety, that miracle in moments of desperation becomes a faded memento forgotten once stomachs begin growling. In the desert, it was as if the whole community had amnesia when their hunger was unsatiated. “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16:3).
 
It is scary to open one’s self to the dark of the divine, giving up control that brings an illusion of safety with it. Mystery can make you hesitant to hope, decidedly prone toward doubt, and more anxious for preferred outcomes. Who am I? Why me? Why now? Those were the first questions Moses asked when God tasked him with leading the Israelites out of slavery and into freedom. And they are the same questions that haunt us when uncertainty flares like a burning bush on the sidewalks of suburban life.
 

- Shelly Miller, Searching for Certainty: Finding God in the Disruptions of Life, 2020.

Reframe Uncertainty (1): God Watches Sinner from Different Perspectives

When a career is replaced by a bot, a church splits due to irreconcilable differences over theology, a friendship dissolves in betrayal, and livelihood is compromised by a health diagnosis, self-protection is our knee-jerk reaction. It is human nature to turn inward, self-reflect, and assess current uncertainty through the lens of our circumstances. But God requires something different from us. Look up and make eye contact with him amid the disruptions of life.
 
Exiled from his own people, perhaps Moses was looking for proof that he was worthy of love and belonging too, as he watched an Egyptian beat up a Hebrew, a man who could’ve been his distant relative. What provoked him to watch his people endure the ravages of hard labor? What question might he have been trying to answer? What false narrative had he made into truth? Moses chose murder over love. How might his actions been different had he chosen to look up rather than out?
 
Because God was watching the Hebrews too. But his response was compassion and liberation, freedom from captivity. Ironically, God chose Moses to lead his own people into freedom, a man prone toward self-reliance rather than relying on God. They watched. Both Moses and God were watching the same people from different perspectives. The Egyptians could’ve been wiped out in a breath, but God offered the choice of response first. What are you watching?
 

- Shelly Miller, Searching for Certainty: Finding God in the Disruptions of Life, 2020.

The Failure of Open Floor Plans

If you’ve ever worked in a building with few to no offices, at first it seems so inviting, creative, and collaborative. Yet, the day-to-day reality is that these environments breed distraction. It’s like they were designed by extroverts to make everyone have to talk and force them to collaborate; yet it ends up being a constant fight to stay focused.

Research supports growing complaints from professionals who say that these environments look great on paper but are a painful and unproductive space in which to work. Certainly, you can cram more people into smaller spaces and sell it as a way to foster more collaboration, but does it lead to more interruptions and distractions and to less privacy? In addition, in many of these open environments, there’s practically no place to go for a private call or conversation, not to mention an area to work that’s quieter and conducive to concentration.

In one study of these open environments, there was an ironic, noticeable increase in workers interacting less face-to-face and relying more on technology like e-mail and instant messaging to communicate. More research is showing that the spaces directly impact concentration. In fact, the main sources of workplace dissatisfaction were increased noise and a marked loss of privacy.

- Joseph McCormack, Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus (2020)

Overcoming FOMO

Overcoming FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a serious challenge that requires some strong virtues:

1. Fortitude. An inner strength and courage to make frequent choices to miss out.
2. Conviction. A commitment to embrace fewer, not more, things.
3. Trust. An instinct that tells you what seems alluring and essential is probably just mindless noise.

In our own circumstances, the habit of turning to noise (e.g. giving into distractions, permitting interruptions, and embracing multitasking) all undermine our ability to focus and train our minds toward craving this impulsiveness, often completely unaware it’s even happening.

- Joseph McCormack, Noise: Living and Leading When Nobody Can Focus (2020)

External Solutions to Internal Problem

For the past five hundred years or so, we’ve searched for external solutions to our internal problem. We have been deluded by the forces of economics and religion to believe that the purpose of life is hard work. So every time we feel empty, dissatisfied, or unfulfilled, we work harder and put in more hours. This trend can be traced to Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, Christopher Columbus, and the Age of Discovery. With Luther, laziness became a sin, and with Columbus and the Age of Discovery, the developed world’s eyes turned to new and unfamiliar places, to novelty as an end goal.

These obsessions became widespread during the industrial age and they have only strengthened in the more than two centuries since. Our time periods are not named for human development anymore, like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. We are currently in the jet age, the information age, the nuclear age, and the Digital Revolution. We measure our years in work products, not personal development.

Ultimately, the solution is not digital. It is as analog as the human body. Technology can do many things for us—extend our lives, keep us safe, expand our entertainment options—but it cannot make us happy. The key to well-being is shared humanity, even though we are pushing further and further toward separation.

We don’t seem to trust our human instincts. When we’re faced with a difficult problem, we search for the right tech, the right tool, and the right system that will solve the issue: bulletproof coffee, punishing exercise, paleo diets, goal-tracking journals, productivity apps. We think our carefully designed strategies and gadgets will make us better. My goal is to dispel that illusion and help you to see that we are not better, but in many cases, worse.

- Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. 2020.

Cult of Efficiency

We are members of the cult of efficiency, and we’re killing ourselves with productivity.

What is the cult of efficiency? It’s a group whose members believe fervently in the virtue of constant activity, in finding the most efficient way to accomplish just about anything and everything. They are busy all the time and they take it on faith that all their effort is saving time and making their lives better.
But they’re wrong. The efficiency is an illusion. They believe they’re being efficient when they’re actually wasting time.

hedonic treadmill

We have endured incredible hardship and unspeakable tragedy, but we developed a coping mechanism to prevent us from slipping into despair. It’s called the hedonic treadmill. It’s a tendency in our species to adjust our mood so that no matter what terrible things happen, we quickly return to the same level of happiness we enjoyed before the traumatic event.

There’s a catch, though: It also works in reverse. In other words, if an incredibly happy change occurs in our lives, we don’t move forward as happier people. Instead, the hedonic treadmill brings us right back to the state of mind we were in before the raise in pay, new house, or lost weight. It means that, for many of us, we are never satisfied.

- Celeste Headlee, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. 2020.