The X Factors

In a reality that exists without but begs for our own control, I have not been able to ignore the “X-factor”, which is the element of the unknown. We can plan our futures as accordingly as we deem necessary in order to meet our wants, needs, or values, as well as our desperation for control, however that control is a facade because of that unknown element. The X-factor imposes upon us a permanent lack of stability and clarity that we have fought over the years and/or met with various coping mechanisms such as meditation or prayer, substance use, therapy, disorders such as ED or OCD, contracts and wills, investments, education, etc all of which are methodologies to deal with (healthily or unhealthily) our lack of control over a future that is unknown.

In the last entry, I discussed “stuckness” due to a degree of comfort in the discomfort because the unknown is sometimes just too unbearable to face. I also addressed the idea that because we have survived in that comfortable discomfort of stuckness, we reside there sometimes permanently, living harder with more struggle and misery than necessary. If we look at this from another angle, we can perhaps acknowledge the amount of guile and guts that achieving the survival of a treacherous existence requires. But that can easily be overlooked by focusing on the story of misery and of discomfort. We can overlook our incredible capabilities to survive war by solely focusing on the lack of peace. And we miss out.

We have made it to this point. Despite the unknown, the comfort, the discomfort, the coping, and the dwelling, we are here, living and reading. So what got us to this point? What got us through the good times and bad, the happy and the sad, but better yet, the unknown element? That I like to call, the “other X-factor”, which is our X-factor. It is our ability to get shit done. Whether at times it has utilized mental strength and cunning, or perhaps brute strength and endurance, or maybe even dumb luck, we got here because of our X-factor’s perseverance in the face of the unknown X-factor. We make shit happen, we get shit done, and we do what we have to do when we have to do it in order to survive. Much like Darwin’s theory of evolution, we are the fittest survivors evolving through our daily lives, perhaps not by growing gills or wings but rather by acclimating to each X-factor as they roll in, finding out how to cope and take another breath.

Why do we not remind ourselves more often of this? Why do we deny the acknowledgment of our X-factor’s ability to get us through life: through births and deaths, marriages and divorces, hirings and firings, sunshine and storms, laughter and tears, and everything in between? If we focus upon the story of just the fear of what could lie ahead, which may or may not be unbearable, which is both undetermined and only possibly inevitable, we lose the reality that we have lived until now. We lose that we have an X-factor we can rely on, we are the fittest survivors, and that where there has been a will, there has been a way.