“Wanting things to be simple can become a kind of prison, it really can, because you end up staying trapped inside how you want things to be rather than embracing how they could be. You end up closed. You end up shutting doors to so many possibilities.”
— Matt Haig, The Life Impossible

There is a tendency to move towards simplicity as we get older and more settled in our ways. The young think in possibilities, the old embrace safety (let’s not age before our time, eh?). What is certain feels safe. Yet nothing in life is certain—certainly not our position in it. The only certainty is the end, and we shroud that in mystery and superstition too.

Our path through uncertainty, I believe, lies in awareness and receptivity. When we are fully aware of where we are, of who we are and where we’re going, we begin to see everything as perfectly imperfect. We know that this little dance with life has its share of stubbed toes and slips. One answer is to get back up and start dancing again. Another answer is to find a new dance floor, or dance partner, a new soundtrack to dance to, or maybe a new dance altogether. Being receptive to change opens us up to possibility.

What is possible for our lives is rarely aligned with what is probable. We must become pattern-breakers to reach possibilities. To explore the world we must leave that which we’ve grown comfortable with, if only for a little while. Having left, we won’t come back the same person. If we come back at all. So why complicate life by leaving at all? Keep it simple, the prison warden in our heads tells us. Simplicity is safe. But it makes everything beyond impossible. At least until we break free of that mind trap.

This is not an inditement of simplicity (I’m rather fond of it myself), but an encouragement to finding more possibility in each day. Our routines save us by keeping us on track towards our goals, which are themselves possibilities. On that road to find out, it’s always worthwhile to ask ourselves if this is the path we want to be on in the first place. Often, the very next question tends to be, what else is possible? We reaffirm our direction or we refute our belief and move on to something else. Possibility is forever an open question leading us towards a more complete answer to our why.