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Reflection Title: It’s All Random!

Book – The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Part 4/5)

Book Description: What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street Crash, Harry Potter and the internet got in common? Why are all forecasters con-artists? What can Catherine the Great's lovers tell us about probability? And, why should you never run for a train or read a newspaper? This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', "The Black Swan" shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty.

Reflection:
After the initial shock of Emilia’s tragic passing slowly faded and my mind came back to the reality of the here and now of facing a lifetime without her, my rational brain tried to kick on and start problem solving. For the following few months, 95% of my thoughts seemed to be consumed with one question, “Why did this happen?”

Every nightly “Emilia Walk” I took with Felicia, I can remember obsessing over this question in my mind as we walked side by side around the park next to our house in silence. Why Emilia? Why did this happen to my family? Why didn’t we go to the hospital that Saturday Night? Why wasn’t I there that Friday when the surgery happened in the first place? Why does this stuff happen to anyone? What is the purpose of all of this pain and suffering? Is there even a God? If there is, why would God put a tiny child through something like that?

I spent a lot of time and energy on questions that couldn’t be answered. I was searching for an explanation that wouldn’t come. I thought if I tried to use logic and rationality to understand the events that occurred in my life that just maybe I might find something that I could have done differently to change the outcome. I replayed the scenes of Emilia’s life over and over in my mind as I attempted to imagine what ifs and different scenarios that I could have done to bring a different outcome.

Shocker…none of it worked. I found no answers to my questions.

Then I read the book, The Black Swan, and everything started to click.

It was all random!

What happened to my family was 100% random! I remember this wave of calmness and acceptance that washed over me one night on an “Emilia Walk” while thinking about randomness of life that this book had sparked in my consciousness. I had no control. Emilia had no control. Felicia had no control. Her doctors and nurses had no control. Even God had no control.

Life if designed to be random, that is how it all works and the beauty of it in so many ways. It doesn’t make sense because it isn’t supposed to make sense. Life doesn’t run on design and logic, because that is always flawed. What isn’t flawed is randomness. Things that don’t seem to make sense in the beginning have a way of working itself out in the end somehow magically. What happened to my daughter was tragic and I’d give anything to have her back with us, but there was nothing any of us could have done to change this outcome from occurring.

Realizing that I will never have control over any outcome in life is freeing. It freed me from the burden of answers that don’t exist. It allowed me to forgive myself, Emilia’s doctors and nurses, God, and the universe. Most importantly, it provided me with a reason to live again and to find a way to turn my pain into purpose.

No matter how much you think you play an important part in the equation of life, you don’t. The truth is, there is no equation. Life runs on a plan of randomness, and we aren’t supposed to understand it. However, that doesn’t mean that you have no control. You have the control over what you care about and the actions you perform each day. This is was living a life of values and purpose is all about.

The Black Swan may have opened my eyes to the power of randomness, but Emilia is the real change maker because she opened my eyes to the power of living a life of purpose!

Question: How are you exercising your control over randomness to live a life of purpose each day?