“Don’t worry about things. Don’t push. Just do your work and you’ll survive.
The important thing is to have a ball, to be joyful, to be loving and to be explosive. Out of that comes everything and you grow.”
— Ray Bradbury
It's now officially too late to wish a happy new year in emails. Instead, I've found myself writing: I hope your year unfolds with good things.
It’s the very thing I’m telling myself, too—good things are unfolding.
But sometimes I struggle with letting them.
Be it in our work, creative practice, or personal lives, letting things unfold can feel counterintuitive.
Instead, we might rush towards the planner, endlessly research, or even quit before giving things a go. Anything to feel like we've rid ourselves of uncertainty.
But we can only hold onto the edges of certainty for so long—eventually things will unfold whether we’ve let them or not.
We’re lying in bed, having finally agreed on the impossibility of pursuing a long-distance relationship.
My head gets it, but my heart is taking a moment longer to catch up, and he can tell.
You want certainty, he tells me.
And you don’t? I reply.
Of course in an ideal world, but that’s life.
Then he goes on to quote Voltaire, the way only a well-read, would-be-long-distance-lover could: “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.”
There is no amount of information, no plan, no step, no question that offers complete certainty. That’s the absurdity of it—all we are doing in our pursuit to eliminate uncertainty is making ourselves more hesitant, confused and anxious.
Letting things unfold is about becoming comfortable with uncertainty.
After many conversations and moments reflecting in solitude, I saw that I was grasping—I wanted a guarantee that we could find a way to be together in the distant future, but there is no such thing as a guarantee. Even the commitment of a marriage is different from a guarantee.
I had to loosen my grip and let things unfold.
To do that, I had to shift my thinking.
I could think of things as uncertain, or I could think of them as unfolding freely.
I could be excited by possibilities, rather than daunted.
I could acknowledge I didn’t know what part of the story I was in—what I thought was the end, could be the middle.
When we let things unfold, we are trusting that what’s for us will find us.
In the meantime, we must step fully into our own lives—and try to have a ball.
As Ann Patchett wrote: “It helps if you can realise that this part of life when you don’t know what’s coming next is often the part that people look back on with the greatest affection.”
If we have a ball in the meantime—meet new people, put ourselves in the world, surprise ourselves—it’s likely we can transform the uncomfortable into something we will look back on with the greatest affection.
To have a ball, there may be things we have to fold away in order to let other things unfold. Not in an act of denial, but rather to recognise what might be preventing us from moving our life along.
Letting things unfold is not always a passive act—part of having a ball with uncertainty is being excited to go up to the edges and give something a little push to see what’s in store.
What’s interesting, I think, is that the more we can have a ball with uncertainty, the more likely we are to meet the life we were grasping for, anyway. It’s no guarantee that we will be with this person forever, that this creative project will land, that we will achieve a certain goal, but having a ball as we try, increases the likelihood more than grasping for a guarantee ever could.
So that’s what I’m doing. I want to go to the edges sometimes. I want to trust the uncertain things beyond my control. I want to let things unfold and have a ball.
There’s one more thing.
I’ve often nodded in agreement when I’ve been told to just let things go.
You’re right, you’re right. I’ve gotta let it go.
But where do the things we let go, actually go?
Do we let someone go and never think of them again? Do we let a rejection go and never feel the sting of disappointment? Do we let go of a place and the memories vanish too?
I don’t think we ever let things go completely. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say after we acknowledge things, we can fold them away, carefully, so the lessons stay intact, but they’re never gone.
It’s this very process that can allow us the presence and curiosity required to let things unfold.
That might sound a little abstract. As a bonus for my paid subscribers, I’ve shared below how I used this process to navigate the long-distance scenario I mentioned. It could equally apply to any type of relationship where you have decided to unfold in different directions.