Frederich Nietzche is well known for his quote, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
While many people (including myself) focus on the "why" aspect of the quote...
The often-overlooked "hows" are where life truly unfolds...
These "hows" are the messy, unpredictable events that make up our daily existence.
And often why people say, "life happens".
Embracing our "why" is essential, but understanding and navigating the "hows" equips us to better prepare for and adapt to life's inevitable changes.
Buddhists have a concept of impermanence - meaning everything is constantly changing and nothing lasts.
As obvious as this might seem, most of us don't live our lives with that idea in mind.
We tend to think - or hope - that things will remain constant. Or, we hope that once we get everything we want, we'll live happily ever after.
In other words, we live life as if there is virtually no chance of change.
Yet, we know that everything changes. Ironically, change is the only constant in life. Changes will thrown our way.
If you think about it, that's how it should be.
Imagine a movie or book where everyone was happy all the time and nobody had any problems to solve. That would be a boring story!
Life is the same. If everything was constant and nothing changed, life could be boring.
On the other hand, a meaningful life consists of solving interesting problems, including adapting to never-ending changes.
Life isn't about removing change from our lives.
It's about getting better at handling change.
Life transitions
Change in life is so common that there's a name - transitions. Transitions are new situations we find ourselves in.
There are many life transitions in different areas of our lives. We've got financial transitions, family transitions, work transitions, health transitions, and legacy transitions.
A transition isn't necessarily a bad thing. They range from good to bad (although whether something is "good" or "bad" is a subjective value judgement).
Life transitions don't necessarily sneak up on us, either. Sometimes, we know they're coming, and other times, we can feel blindsided.
We can consider both of these together as one grid.
Some life transitions are expected, and many would consider it good.
Retirement is an obvious choice here.
But this could also be a promotion at work, having kids, empty nesting, selling a business, graduating college, and so on.
Some transitions are good but seem to come out of nowhere.
If you receive a mystery inheritance from a long-lost relative, many people would consider that good (ignoring here the fact that there may be some grief if the relative was close to you).
A surprise promotion would fit here, too, as well as an unplanned pregnancy (if that's something you would consider good - remember, good and bad are value judgements), or surprising investment returns.
There are, of course, bad transitions, but even with bad transitions, sometimes we know they're coming.
For example, you may have aging relatives.
Empty nesting (listed above as a "good" transition) could be considered a bad transition if your identity is tied to being a parent.
Aging yourself is something you know is coming, but still feels bad when you have your first prescription or have to get glasses for the first time.
Finally, the worst kind.
The bad ones that come out of nowhere.
Arguably, these are the toughest ones to cope with because of the unexpected, negative nature of them. If you found out your spouse wants a divorce and you didn't see it coming, that would be in this quadrant. Losing a spouse or child to cancer or accident would be here, or getting diagnosed with a life-long illness.
Transitions are important to plan for, even with the expected good ones, because most transitions have a financial tether. Transitions mean something is changing.
Resilience and coping
Resilience is the ability to bounce back and grow from adversity. When transitions happen, a person with more resilience will cope with the transition faster and with fewer negative consequences.
Coping with transitions is how we both strategically handle our new situation but also how we emotionally handle it.
Much like transitions themselves, we can think of coping strategies in terms of a grid. On one axis, we look at strategies through the lens of how much control we have. Some things are in our control and others we have no control over. Stoics call this the dichotomy of control.
On the other axis are our actions. We can choose to do something or not do something.
These two axes provide us with four coping strategies.
Doing things within your control is active coping.
Reaching out to friends, hiring professionals, doing research, and journaling all fall into this quadrant.
Having things in your control but not doing them is called passive coping.
I might be able to reach out to people, but I don't - maybe because I feel embarrassed or don't want to admit it.
Doing things you have no control over is called overcontrol.
This is when we feel so uncomfortable with uncertainty that we do things just to say we're doing something.
It gives us the illusion of control.
If I see the stock market falling, for example, I might tinker with my portfolio even if that won't help (or make things worse).
Other people's actions and thoughts are outside of our control, so trying to change them is overcontrol.
Letting go of things over which we have no control is surrendering.
We accept that what will happen is going to happen, and we focus our energy instead on things we do have control over.
Of these four, two strategies are adaptive...
Active coping and surrendering.
Adaptive coping will be helpful to us and help us bounce back. It makes us more resilient.
Passive coping and overcontrol are maladaptive coping strategies.
They're unlikely to help us bounce back and may make us worse off.
Expectations
You might be familiar with the equation F = H - E (or sometimes H = R - E).
This little 'equation' says that how we feel is what happened minus what we thought would happen (or happiness equals reality minus expectations).
This is an important concept.
Expectations matter.
If we live our lives expecting everything to stay the same (alternatively, living our lives not expecting change), then we'll be surprised when the inevitable change happens.
To drive the point home with a silly example, if I expect everyone to be a "good driver", then I'll be upset when I inevitably get cut off, or see someone speeding past me, or have a slow driver in front of me.
On the other hand, if I expect there to be some crazy drivers out there when they show up, I can say to myself, "There they are."
Expecting transitions is easy for the types of transitions we know are coming. It's a little trickier to expect an unexpected transition, but it's possible.
Let me explain.
I know there are going to be stock market downturns, though I don't know when, why, or how long it will last.
The fact is they'll exist in the future.
Similarly, I don't know what my next unexpected expense will be, when, or how much, but I know for sure I'll have unexpected expenses.
Similarly, I don't know if I'll experience any particular transition, but I know there'll definitely be transitions in the future.
Expecting transitions changes our relationship with them.
When something happens that meets your expectations, it doesn't feel that bad (or good).
That's true, even if it's a negative event.
Think about what happens, though, when your expectations aren't met. If you didn't achieve what you hoped, that feels bad.
It also feels bad when a bad thing turns out worse than you thought.
The flip side is when we exceed our expectations, it feels great!
This is true when we get more than what we thought.
The funny thing is, it's also true when something bad happens.
If something bad happens, like a negative transition, but it's not as bad as we thought, it feels pretty good - even though something bad happened.
And most of the time, things are not as bad as we think.
We can't stop change - and wouldn't want to - but we can better anticipate and prepare for it.
Expecting transitions and coping with them adaptively will help you navigate the hows of your life and get you back to your why.
