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Lighter Than You Started is a daily podcast offering gentle reflections on the news, the noise, and the small human moments that shape our days. With wry humour and quiet honesty, it’s not about fixing you, just about ending each day feeling a little lighter than when it began.
Hi I'm Keith and welcome to Lighter Than You Started. It's Sunday and today I'd like to talk about a question we ask surprisingly often. Where is this going? We ask it about work, relationships, plans, projects, ideas, sometimes life in general. We like to know the direction of travel.
Keith:If something's going well we want to know where it might lead. If something isn't going well we want to know how it's going to end. If we're considering a change we want to know what comes after it. And if we don't know we can become rather uncomfortable because uncertainty leaves an empty space and the human mind does enjoy filling an empty space usually with predictions. Some optimistic, some considerably less so.
Keith:Perhaps you're considering changing something at work. Immediately the mind wants the complete story. What happens if I do? Where will I be in a year? Will it work?
Keith:Will I regret it? What if the thing after this is worse than the thing I've got now? All perfectly reasonable questions. The difficulty is that we're sometimes asking today's version of ourselves to provide information that only tomorrow can give us and today's version tries anyway. It's very conscientious like that.
Keith:So we imagine predict calculate, recalculate, run a few imaginary scenarios then just to be thorough run them again at 03:00 in the morning and eventually we can start to believe that before taking one step we ought to know where the whole road leads. But how often do we really know? Think about some of the important things in your life now. The people you know, the work you do, the places you've lived, the things you enjoy. Could you have predicted all of those ten years ago, five years ago, perhaps even twelve months ago?
Keith:Some maybe but probably not all. Life has a habit of introducing things that weren't included in the original itinerary. A conversation, an opportunity, a person, a decision, something ending, something beginning, something we thought was a setback turning out to redirect us somewhere useful and occasionally something we were absolutely convinced would be wonderful turning out to be mostly paperwork. We're not particularly good at seeing around corners yet we often behave as though we should be. Perhaps as a gentler way to approach uncertainty.
Keith:Instead of asking where's this going we might sometimes ask does this feel like the right next step? That's a much smaller question and smaller questions are often easier to answer. You might not know whether a new opportunity will become the next ten years of your career but perhaps you do know that you'd like to explore it. You may not know where a new friendship will lead but perhaps you know you enjoy the conversations you're having right now. You may not know whether a new habit will change your life but perhaps you know going for a twenty minute walk today would do you good.
Keith:You don't need the ending in order to choose the next page. I think we sometimes forget that. We're so accustomed to evaluating decisions by outcomes that we want to see the outcome before making the decision which would be extremely convenient. I'd certainly subscribe to that service. Imagine receiving a message every morning: Good news we've checked Thursday go ahead with Tuesday.
Keith:Very useful. Sadly that doesn't appear to be available. So we do something else. We choose with incomplete information. We always have.
Keith:We make the best decision we can with what we know right now. Then life gives us some more information and we choose again. Perhaps that's not a flaw in the process. Perhaps that is the process. There's another reason we like to know where things are going.
Keith:It gives us a sense of control. A plan feels solid. A destination feels reassuring. Even if the plan eventually changes having one can make us feel as though we're holding the steering wheel. And plans are useful.
Keith:I'm certainly not arguing against them. If you're driving to Edinburgh having some idea that Edinburgh is the destination is probably helpful. But even then you don't need to know every roundabout before leaving home. You trust that you'll deal with each part of the journey when you reach it. Perhaps we can offer ourselves that same trust in others areas of life.
Keith:Not everything will work out exactly as I want. That's reassurance that none of us can honestly give ourselves. Something quieter. I'll respond to what happens when I know what happens. I like that because it brings us back from an imagined future into the information we actually have right now.
Keith:Perhaps something in your life feels uncertain at the moment. Maybe you're waiting, exploring, considering, beginning. Perhaps you're in that strange middle ground where the old thing doesn't quite fit anymore but the new thing hasn't fully appeared. Those periods can feel uncomfortable. We want to name them, resolve them, get through them.
Keith:We want to be able to say ah this is what's happening but sometimes we can't yet. Sometimes we're simply between knowing and perhaps that's a place too not necessarily a place to live forever but somewhere we're allowed to stand for a while. We can be curious there We can notice, gather information, try something, change our minds, take a small step and see what becomes visible from there. It's rather like walking through fog. If you've ever done that you'll know you don't necessarily see the entire path.
Keith:Perhaps you can see 20 meters. So you walk those 20 meters and then another part of the path appears. You don't need the fog to disappear from the whole landscape before you move. You just need enough visibility for the next bit. Maybe life is sometimes like that.
Keith:We can spend a lot of energy trying to clear fog that isn't ready to clear or we can ask what can I see from here? Maybe that's enough. There's something reassuring too about remembering how many times you've already done this. You've lived through uncertainty before. You've made decisions without guarantees.
Keith:You started things without knowing exactly where they'd lead. You've met people without knowing the role they'd eventually play in your life. You've had plans change. You've adapted. Not perfectly, not always happily, but you're here and perhaps you don't need certainty about the future as much as you need a little trust in your ability to meet it.
Keith:That's different. Certainty says I know what's going to happen. Trust says I don't know what's going to happen but I can respond when it does. One requires knowledge we don't have the other remembers something we already know that we've responded before. So perhaps this Sunday if it's something you're trying to see too far ahead with bring the horizon a little closer.
Keith:You don't have to decide what this means for the next five years. Perhaps you only need to decide what feels right this week. You don't have to know whether this new thing will work forever. Perhaps you can find out whether it works for now. You don't have to know the ending.
Keith:Maybe you just need the next sentence. And if you can't even see that yet perhaps today can simply be a day when you don't know. No conclusion, no forced answer, no imaginary future presented as fact, just I don't know yet. There are worse answers. In fact sometimes it's the most accurate one available and perhaps adding one little word changes the whole feeling a bit.
Keith:Not I don't know but I don't know yet. There's room in yet. Room for information, Room for change. Room for life to show us something we couldn't have predicted from where we're standing right now. Today's talk for you.
Keith:You don't need to know where this is going yet. Sometimes you only need enough clarity for the next step. Thank you for sharing this moment on a Sunday with me and as always I hope you end today feeling lighter than you started. Go gently and and I'll see you tomorrow on the flip side. Lighter Than You Started is a think of something publishing production.