This post was written by Ivy Griffiths, a Humanities Center student fellow.
I often find myself worrying about my future. With so many variables out of my control, there is no way to guarantee success in my endeavors. If life is a game, how can I win when I don’t hold all the cards? I’ve been dealt a decent hand, but how can I be sure that I’ll end up on top at the end of the round?
For worriers and serial planners like myself, Paul Arden’s coffee-table book Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite (2006), reads like a slap to the face.
According to Arden, trying to plan everything is planning to be let down in life. Feeling trapped? “It’s not because you are making the wrong decisions,” Arden writes. “It’s because you are making the right ones. We try to make sensible decisions based on the facts in front of us. The problem is that so is everyone else” (p. 21). Some of the most successful people have been those who decide to take risks—who decide to be reckless, unreasonable, and do what nobody else will.
What does that look like?
I am working towards a career as an art museum curator. For me, this looks like letting my assumptions go. Following my bachelor’s degree, I can apply for graduate schools that I am confident I’ll get into. But I can also apply to my dream schools with confidence that I am what they are looking for.
Or, I can apply directly to 100 jobs and internships I want, regardless of what education level or years of experience they are looking for. I probably won’t hear back from very many of these employers, but the ones I do hear back from might be just what I need to get a jump start on my career.
Whatever you think, think the opposite. When a door closes for you, don’t go home and give up. That is what everyone else would do. If you really want what is on the other side of that door, you’ll explore all the possibilities. There must be a side gate somewhere left unlocked. Find a way to get where you are trying to go.
“If you don’t have the degrees or fees to go to university, just turn up. If you want to be in a job where they won’t accept you, just turn up. Go to all the lectures, run errands, make yourself useful. Let people get to know you. Eventually they will accept you because you are a part of their community. They will not only respect your perseverance but will like you for it. It may take time, a year say, but you will be in, not out” (p. 118).
I can have goals and aspirations, but I cannot plan my future. Returning to the metaphor I proposed at the onset: If life is a game, how can I win when I don’t hold all the cards? I’ve been dealt a decent hand, but how can I be sure that I’ll end up on top at the end of the round?
I can’t.
But that’s alright too. If life is a game, I can change the game. “The world is what you think of it. So think of it differently and your life will change” (136).
Works Cited:
Arden, Paul. Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite. Penguin, 2006.
