Finding Your “If” Factor
Answering the most important questions of life.
Navigating life is a matter of navigating questions and they are rarely clear ones. The questions are usually only half formed, requiring us to guess at both the answer and the question itself at the same time. Despite this perpetual ambiguity, when we reduce the complexity of the problem at hand, it usually devolves into a single word question: If.
Life is a matter of If’s, if this happens or that; if we do or do not; if they do or do not; if, if, if.
In that simple, two letter word we find contained the essence of uncertainty. It is the hinge upon which every plan or strategy hangs. Causation itself is a matter of If. We can only rest in the certainty of questions and uncertainty, nothing more and nothing less.
Each of us will respond to the uncertainty of If in different ways. For some, it becomes a challenge which forces us to improve and grow, for others it can be a question so debilitating it drives them to the refuge of addiction. How you react is a matter of your If Factor, the range at which you can approach the If successfully or not.
This uncertainty, and this struggle to face If successfully, was masterfully illustrated by Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem of the same name. Within it, the author contrasts the…
