Seeking Predictability
The Times They Are A-Changin
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again.
The battle outside ragin
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls.
- Bob Dylan, 1964, The Times They Are A-Changin
Seeking Predictability
Zen of Coaching
Tassajara Retreat, June 16 - 21
Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin
What I’m Reading, Thinking Fast and Slow
I like things to be predictable. I find myself resisting change. One of the books I’ve been outlining is titled Buddhists Against Change…a joke, or poking fun at my/our tendency to deny impermanence, a fundamental truth of Buddhist philosophy, and most of all the tendency to deny the reality of change.
Our brains, emotions, and nervous systems rely on predictability. I’ve always been fond of the research of neuroscientist Regina Pally whose work concludes that our brains unconsciously predict what is most likely to happen and sets in motion perceptions, emotions, behaviors and interpersonal responses best adapted to what is expected, before events occur. We predict the future and then lean in to creating the future we’ve predicted.
Our world is many things right now, but predictable isn’t one of them, or if it is, it’s easy to predict that awful policies and events will continue, and perhaps worsen.
It’s easy to fall into “status quo” bias or “projection” bias, or “end of history” bias - thinking and feeling that what is happening now will continue on the same trajectory.
I find some solace or hope in noticing these biases and realizing instead how unpredictable the future is.
Practice: Notice the tendency to predict the future based on the past and to seek predictability. Notice how unpredictable your life has been, again and again. Notice how unpredictable history is, again and again.
Zen of Coaching: For Executive Coaches
Transforming Others, Becoming Your Best Self, Changing The World
5 Online Sessions, Beginning May 8th.
Zen of Coaching is a transformational program for executive coaches and leaders who want to deepen their presence, expand their impact, and build a coaching practice rooted in wisdom, not just performance. Blending Zen principles, mindfulness, and real-world leadership experience, this course supports you in cultivating stillness, navigating complexity, and coaching with greater authenticity, clarity, and purpose.
For more information and to register.
Step Into Your Life. A Zen Inspired Retreat. Tassajara. June 16 - 21
In our world of busyness—of more, faster, better—this retreat offers time to stop, reflect, renew, and step fully into the richness of your life. Together, we’ll follow a gentle schedule of sitting and walking meditation, interspersed with talks and discussions from the wisdom of Zen teaching, as we explore how these dialogues may be utilized in our relationships, our work, and our lives.
Through meditations, Zen teachings and stories, conversations, awareness practices, and writing we’ll create a safe, vital, and meaningful time of learning together. This retreat is open to everyone interested in stopping, exploring, and bringing more awareness and mindfulness to daily life.
The Times They Are A-Changin, Bob Dylan, 1964
Seeing and hearing Bob Dylan sing this song for the first time was one of my favorite moments in the film, A Complete Unknown. The country and the world were in crises and acknowledging the level of change taking place struck a chord. As he began to sing, the audience erupted in a kind of joy and connection.
Come gather ‘round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
What I’m Reading
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman - A classic on understanding and identifying bias, that I find myself returning to often.
Warmest regards,
Marc