Uncertainty in baseball and in life

Heads-up: This post is not really about baseball…

If you're a Texas Rangers fan, you might not want to read this post. Not that I'm really a Cardinals fan – I'm from Chicago and have seen what the Cardinals fans do to our helpless little stuffed bears in their baseball shirts. But Cubs fans do similarly nasty things to innocent stuffed cardinals, bright red with their pointy crests, so I suppose fair's fair.

In case you're not into it, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series Friday night in the 7th game, after the Rangers were twice one strike away from taking the Series in the 6th game. As the old saying goes, you just never know until the last man's out.

You never do completely know, do you? Life seems logical and predictable only until it isn't. You keep going for something, and most good things are worth the effort and the wait (more old sayings). Yet sometimes it just doesn't pan out (the Rangers), while other times your perseverance, hard effort, and teamwork hit the jackpot (the Cardinals).

What if you work your butt off toward a goal, and it doesn't work out as you'd planned or expected or dreamed? This is the chance you take by embarking on a path toward any goal. There is no certainty for anyone – not for the Rangers, and not for you.

The best any of us can do is get to know ourselves as well as we can, taking stock of where we are and what makes us tick, then develop a strong vision for where we would like to go. We can then establish goals and benchmarks toward our larger vision, and become skilled observers of the emotional roadblocks that stand in our way as we go along, learning how to set them aside and move forward.

Does this mean that we know for sure what the outcome will be? Certainly not, and our vision can change as we go along. But it does mean that we can keep checking in with the vision (our version of winning the World Series) and keep moving along in the direction we want to go. If, over time, our movements do not seem to be getting anywhere, we can change strategies while maintaining the vision.

The tricky balance is becoming comfortable not knowing for sure what will happen while maintaining the momentum to move toward what we want. Being able to accept a level of uncertainty in our lives and in each moment makes it easier to deal with the fact that life does not provide us with the safe parameters of a tidy 9 innings.