You don’t know if your printer will crash when you only allotted five minutes to pump out a handful of pages.
You don’t know if when you grab the backup computer, its operating system will crank into update mode, and stay that way for twenty minutes.
You don’t know if it will storm when you thought you could cycle to your destination, if the ignition will refuse to turn over, if you’ll be stalled behind a fender bender, or slowed by a dump truck chugging along below the speed limit. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Do our kids understand the necessity of contingency planning? Do we?
Just life? Perspective.
Some call it Murphy’s Law. Others say “it’s just life.” As adults, in business or family scheduling, we learn to plan for the unexpected. At the very least, we allow extra time.
But it’s not just about adding an hour of slack. It’s a matter of understanding the ripple effects of not planning. The impacts on yourself. And on those who depend on your word, your punctuality, your presence, your presence of mind.
In organizations, dependencies are a critical aspect of managing projects. Tasks are interrelated, and when one person doesn’t do their part – or runs late – the downside is clear. Everyone scrambles to pick up the slack. You may get the job done, but it’s messier, and more stressful.
The family system is no different. When a kid runs late and the only other computer belongs to a parent, then using that computer cuts into the parent’s time. At least, in a household where the parent lives on a laptop 14 hours a day! Perhaps it’s only 15 minutes and there is no impact. Perhaps it’s two hours, and there is.
Are adults more able to adjust? Well, we get used to stealing from sleep, we work faster, we re-prioritize on the spot, and push less important activities to the next day. But the consequences – one way or another – are absorbed by someone.
Step into my shoes. See what I see.
Yesterday morning I was making a routine drive home from the supermarket. There are several dangerous left turns, across three lanes of traffic, where the possibility of being T-boned is high if you aren’t careful. I drive a small car that is low to the ground. My ability to see traffic coming up a hill and around a turn is limited. It’s certainly different from the viewpoint of a driver seated behind the wheel of an SUV.
Waiting to make my turn, two SUVs behind me were nudging impatiently. One driver cut out of line, crossed the highway, and shot me a dirty look. The next driver pulled up behind me, and hit her horn. I had no visibility whatsoever around yet another SUV facing me in the intersection.
One idiot? I dealt with it. Two? I unrolled my window, leaned out, flailed my arms, and yelled “I’m not in an SUV! I can’t see what you see!”
Believe it or not, the woman heard, sheepishly gestured “okay,” and leaned back to wait. I turned when I could. She followed. In this case, I knew what I didn’t know and acted accordingly.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
We try to teach our kids time management, though they’ll more likely learn the hard way as we did – in college and first jobs. We also try to teach our kids to see things from the other guy’s viewpoint. To understand that you don’t know what you don’t know.
If your friend at school is uncharacteristically quiet, something may be wrong. Show a little thoughtfulness. The snarling customer service rep? She may have been up all night with her baby, or had a fight with her husband. That person in front of you? He may not see what you see, or know what you know.
You cut people slack, because you don’t know what they’re going through, what motivates them, or why they may behave in ways that strike us as odd or inappropriate. But you can bet they have their reasons.
The upside to everything.
I like a little mystery in life. While I don’t believe there’s a silver lining to everything, there is a positive twist to many things.
You don’t know if today will be the day you hear from an old friend, the day you get a new job, the day you meet someone spectacular. You don’t know if 33 miners who have been trapped underground for two months will be rescued. Every single one of them. Lives saved. Another sort of perspective altogether.
You don’t know what you don’t know. And some days, that’s just fine.
Oh man, isn’t this the truth?! That’s life – but some days you seem to get more than your share of unpredictability. I guess it should make me more appreciative of days that actually go smoothly!
This is so true. We just don’t know what is happening in the lives of another or what is going on behind the next bend. We have to remember to sit back, take a breath, and let go because if we don’t… we end up paying the price one way or another.
We simply don’t know what we don’t know… and I think I prefer it that way most of the time.
Personally I get frustrated when things go wrong at ME because I know better, and should plan more.
I love that the woman heard you and relaxed!
So true! I like this “While I don’t believe there’s a silver lining to everything, there is a positive twist to many things.” That’s a great way to live/think.
I love the lady in the SUV story! So great that she heard you! 🙂
You don’t know how much I needed to read this today. It’s something that I try and do as often as I can: Give others the benefit of the doubt. I had a super rough parenting night and today I am not feeling like seeing things in anyone else’s way. I’m being a short tempered jerk. Which.. i guess is fine because I’m alone: I sent the kid away to my grandparents house. But my point is just that your words helped me so much today.
Thanks for writing them.
Some times I don’t care to ever find out what I don’t know! Know what I mean?
Good grief, I love this post. Another to re-read…or maybe to print, if the printer’s working, and tape to the wall, if I have some tape.
I’m impatient sometimes, with the not-knowing. It’s the little things, like when that check will come in the mail or when my husband will get home from work or when this or that meeting will end. With the biggest ones, I’m comfortable not knowing – I sort of love not knowing. I should probably embrace blind turns the same way.
Like you, Leslie, I think the not knowing for some of the “big things” is more okay than the little things that can derail a day. But as for embracing blind turns? I might rephrase – prepare for blind turns (with extra time and care, like that left turn intersection?) – and expect that no matter how well you plan, things will go awry. All the more reason for multiple backup plans, patience, and extra (strong) coffee. (On that note, time to backup some files!)
Ditto to everything Leslie said, and everything that you responded.
I would just add that I need to make this phrase my new mantra while driving. In general, I am a reasonable, patient, tolerant person, but for some reason I assume the worst when I’m driving. It’s ugly, really. (And I also have a little car so my ire is almost always directed to the SUVs around me.) But you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sometimes not knowing is good. If we can keep from growing impatient because we don’t know. And remember that we don’t know. I could develop a real tangled circle here, so I think I’ll just say, “great post” and leave it at that.
To live moment to moment is what we are all aiming for right? It is the spontaneity in life that we all crave. When life becomes too mundane and predictable the spirit becomes bored. I guess it is a matter of trusting ourselves to let that spontaneity take hold. If there are no expectation then maybe the failures do not feel so bad because we did not expect anything. So I full heartedly agree that not knowing what you don’t know is all good.
The problem is we think we know how things will go, or we expect things to work out a certain way.
Sometimes they do, but sometimes that had nothing to do with us at all!
I think many of us (the helicopter parents, that is) have raised our kids to expect that life is going to go a lot smoother than it actually will. When we give kids trophies just for showing up, not even having a winning season (as my kid experienced more than once), I mean, where can they go from there?
Failure is one of life’s best teachers. And, accepting that we are going to die one day. Finding peace with that makes one embrace the journey of life and its many moments, mundane or not.
I couldn’t agree more, Kat.
Love this phrase, BLW! I need to write it down on a notecard and post it in my car and in my office. Lest I forget it immediately, as I do with most things.
Personally, it’s easier for me to remember that I don’t know what I don’t know when dealing with other people. When it comes to events or deadlines, etc., I lose patience quickly. I should work on that.
The line that grabbed me most in this very thoughtful post was “It’s a matter of understanding the ripple effects of not planning.” When you don’t take the time to handle a task carefully, looking it over twice, three times to see what might have been overlooked, the repercussions of sloppy actions and carelessness go on and on and on. I forget that – and then wonder why my life seems so upside down so often. It’s not bad Karma – it’s the result of not “acting consciously” – of not “being here now”. Thanks for the reminder.