Category: Unknown

How Do You Handle Life’s Curveballs?

Life can be unpredictable. How do you respond when the unexpected happens, when life throws you a curveball?

For the most part, we like to live neat, orderly lives. We fill our closet with clothes we like to wear, stock our fridge or pantry with food options. We keep calendars with our schedules, so we know exactly what each day entails.

But life has a way defying expectations.  Each day, hundreds of things happen that you didn’t plan for, that you didn’t see coming. Some might be good, like unexpected opportunities. And some might be bad, like accidents or emergencies.

With so many curveballs each day, developing a strategy to deal with them, if possible, is a good idea.  Sticking with a plan has advantages, but so does being flexible. Striking the right balance between the two can be crucial.

How do you deal with the unexpected? Are you good at rolling with the punches, or do you try to plan for every possible outcome? How do you handle it when you are thrown a curveball?

Related questions: How do you plan for the future? Do you keep a to-do list? Planning or spontaneity? How has luck shaped your life?

How Do You See The Future?

It can be difficult to see months into the future, let alone years or decades. How do you see what lies ahead?

Reality serves us a constant reminder that we don’t know what is going to happen. At the start of the football season, we don’t know who is going to win the Super Bowl. We can’t predict the weather more than a week in advance. People who invest in the stock market can only hope a particular stock will go up in price.

And yet, despite all the evidence that shows we cannot accurately predict the future, some people seem awfully sure about what will happen next. News pundits, op-ed columnists, and politicians all seem certain they know exactly what will happen. Not to mention psychics and tarot card readers.

With that in mind, how do you think about what tomorrow will bring?

Perhaps you view the future with optimism. Tomorrow, you might expect, will be better than today. But, of course, there is no guarantee that this is true.

Or you might think that instead, we can expect the future to be very much like the present (or the past). After all, the sun rose yesterday, it rose this morning, and it will rise tomorrow. But we know that sometimes there are changes, including big ones. The COVID-19 pandemic caught nearly everyone by surprise, and that was an obvious case where the future (say, April 2020) didn’t resemble the past (February 2020).

When you think about the future, how do you make predictions, and how do you react to those predictions? What does that mean for your present?

Related questions: Should we try to predict the future? How much does your past determine your future? Will the future be better than the present? How do you plan for the future?

What Would You Say To People In The Future?

If you had a chance to convey a message to future generations, what would you say? What would you hope to communicate?

Speaking to the past is easy. For instance, here at Intellectual Roundtable, we previously asked the question: What advice would you give your past self?

Such a question is relatively common in our society, and it is easy to see why. Even though to your past self, the future is a mystery, your present self knows what happens. You have the advantage of knowing how it all turns out.

Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘What are you waiting for?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘Are science and religion compatible?’

However, to your present self, the future is unknown, perhaps even unknowable. So what do you say to the unknown?

You might even have some idea of what to tell yourself a decade on (or more). But what about someone a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand years from now? What information would you try to convey? How is it different from sending a message in the present moment, to the other side of the world?

Of course, we have a version of talking through time already. After all, isn’t that what writers do? What is, say, the novel Frankenstein, if it is not Mary Shelley taking to us from the 1800s? Was Homer speaking to people more than a thousand years later when he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey?

So the technology exists to send a message forward in time. How would you use it? What would you say to people in the future?

Related questions: Past, present, or future? How do you plan for the future? What is time? What do we owe the future? Will the future be better than the present?

How Do You Plan For The Future?

With a world that is full of uncertainties, dealing with the present can be difficult, let alone planning for the future. And yet, as the saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Our present moment is one of unusual circumstances. Everyday life has been changed, nearly beyond recognition. On top of that, things are changing very quickly. In addition to that, we don’t know how long until we can return to some semblance of normal life.

With that in mind, how do you prepare for a future that may not come? Do you try to plan for multiple eventualities? Alternately, you could do nothing, and simply let the future unfold. After all, the future is ultimately unknowable.

It can be difficult to prepare for the future under ordinary circumstances. But in the midst of unprecedented events, what do you do? How do you plan for the future?

Related questions: What do we owe the future? What can you control? How do you set priorities? What is unknowable?

Are There Unexpected Benefits To What We Are Going Through?

Reading the news can be depressing. People around the world are sick and dying. Supply chains are being interrupted, leading to economic instability. No one, not even the experts, know what will happen next week, let alone a month from now.

And yet, there are bright spots if you look hard enough. Seeing them may require a change of perspective. There might be some data that you hadn’t heard before. Maybe some positive behaviors have risen unexpectedly. Or maybe you just need to hear some good news when you are overwhelmed with the bad.

So, what are the news stories or anecdotes that bring you hope? What are the positives of the current situation? Is there anything that helps you wade through the negative news? Are there unexpected benefits to what we are going through? What may be the long-term positive changes?

Related questions: When is doubt helpful? What are you optimistic about? How can we turn sadness into constructive action? What makes a community?