The simple and finite world of black and white

When asked why they couldn’t execute something on time, people often attribute their failures to forces outside of their control.

In contract law, attorneys will often use the legal term act of god, which is an implied defense under the rule of impossibility or impracticality. Events for which nobody can be held responsible. Chalking nonperformance up to divine intervention, fate or destiny.

But here’s the thing. Most of life is forces outside of our control.

With the exception of water pressure in dams releasing a geological fault or geothermal injections of water provoking earthquakes or illegal drilling causing a mud volcano, odds are, forces outside of our control is yet another way of not taking responsibility when things don’t work out.

Hiding in the cozy grey areas of life to justify poor choices and mediocre results.

And not to be insensitive to people’s experience. I understand that life is a subjective experience, and there’s no need to burden ourselves with too many absolutes.

But the simple and finite world of black and white has its merits. It knocks out excuses, reduces our experience of anxiety, prevents the rationalization of failure and enables daily decision making to be significantly easier and faster.

And so, for the sake of our sanities, and the sanities of the people we work with, just own it. Let’s just assume that all forces are outside of our control.

Either we did enough, or we didn’t.

Either we had an idea, or we had an I did.

Life has no preheat setting.

Are you evading responsibility by believing you can control outcomes that you demonstrably have no influence over?