all part of the game

As 2023 slides out and 2024 opens, I am reminded of a quote in Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From

“At every moment in the timeline of an expanding biosphere, there are doors that cannot be unlocked yet”

Perception fascinates me. 

Perception - ‘a result of perceiving’
Perceiving - ‘to attain awareness or understanding of’

To perceive something in this moment, implies a time in which I was unable to do so. There was a before and an after.

Perception is an action based process, dictated by our brain, developed and influenced by our singular and unique life experience, an amalgamation of environmental factors, biases, heuristics, genetics, sociocultural influences and social games. We are constantly creating and co-creating our lives and experiences based upon how our worlds seem to us. 

Like Zaffon and Logan state in The Three Laws of Performance

“If something occurs to you and others as an obstacle, you’ll push back by playing on the obstacles terms. Instead make the obstacles conditions of the game.”

Rather than perceiving something as a mistake, it is within our abilities to perceive it as we wish: a gift, a sign, a part of the game.

When I realised I perceive things, not as objective truth, but rather as what I have decided to see, I was shocked. Suddenly the longing, the jealousy, the powerlessness I felt when looking at others lives, fell away. Nothing stood between me and the life I wanted to live, other than the perception I had about myself and my future.

Now, as the door of 2024 has opened, I’m thinking about choosing my perception of the future, not as the ‘default future’, but as the ‘created future’.
When there exists endless possibilities for my life, I may as well choose.