There’s comfort in the control we feel when we think we know what will happen in the future. But the freedom of surrender can be even better.
Belief in prediction is the secret engine that powers New Year’s resolutions. We decide to commit to habits because we predict they’ll do something for us. Take running: We might say we’ll jog three times per week because we believe the exercise will benefit our physical and mental health. But something surprising happened to me recently that made me face the limits of prediction. What I learned is inspiring me to change how I respond when my predictions don’t work.
When Prediction Fails
I’ve written before about how I had to have surgery on both my arms this fall to deal with problems that had been plaguing me for over 14 years. There are many reasons I did not want to have two surgeries in two months. But I told myself that one perk of having a pair of mirror-image surgeries six weeks apart would be being able to predict how the second one would go.
Of course, you can’t know exactly how a given surgery will turn out, but I thought I had at least learned a few things about my body overall.
I was wrong.
For instance, I thought I had learned how I respond to the anesthesia cocktail used for the procedures. The first time, I discovered that sedation doesn’t make me queasy, so I don’t need anti-nausea medication, but I do need to be aware that I process nerve blocks slowly (arms are a heavy hazard when your nerves don’t work!). So, I was very confused when I woke up from the second surgery with profound nausea, which ended up lasting days. And then, just a couple of hours later, I realized I could wiggle my fingers. I was full-on shocked that by the time I went to bed that night, I could move my arm normally (well, as normally as one can move a bandaged arm). What had happened?
That was just the beginning. In those early days, it felt like nearly everything was different. As another example, after the first surgery, I experienced lots of postoperative inflammation. My fingers and arm swelled like sausages, leading to discomfort and decreased range of motion. It was two weeks before I could put on my wedding ring again. Okay, I thought, now I know that I am prone to inflammation. Good to know. But the second time? No visible swelling at all. Within days, I could bend the recently operated-on arm further than the one with the six-week head start.
It’s Just Like That Sometimes
I was ready for things to be a bit different, but this felt bizarre. What was going on?
I figured my doctors would be perplexed, too. I pictured furrowed brows and lab orders. At the very least, some sort of rationale. But when I asked my anesthesiologist and surgeon about my radically different experience, they acted like it was the most normal thing ever. All surgeries are different, they said.
As a former health sciences researcher, I can tell you this is not how I was trained to think of independent variables and dependent variables. We had controlled for almost everything: nearly the same procedures on the same person at the same time of day on the same day of the week with the same surgical team. How could my resulting experience be anything but almost identical?
According to my doctors, sometimes it’s like that. “It just happens sometimes” is a vote against the predictability of our world.
Surrender To Life’s Unpredictability
I think a lot of us, myself included, like to believe in a predictable world. If I can just account for the correct inputs, I’ll know what’s coming. Maybe I’ll even be able to shape my future to my liking. Whatever happens, I won’t be surprised. I’ll be safe.
Operating in a predictable universe requires us to refine our predictions constantly to maintain that sense of safety. If inputs don’t lead to expected outputs, I must have missed something. I just need more information. Next time, I’ll get it right.
But “It just happens sometimes” suggests we might not always be able to predict what will happen. It suggests that rather than devoting increasing resources to developing an ever-more sophisticated algorithm, you wave a white flag of surrender. You admit that some things aren’t knowable. You accept that sometimes you don’t get to learn why.
Maybe this sounds heavy and despairing, like sinking into an overwhelming, cold black sea. But I don’t see it that way. I mean surrender in a mindful sense, as discussed in this episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast. To me, surrender feels like floating belly up in the ocean of real life and relaxing into it, with the sun warming your face. What can I let wash over me? How can I ride with this reality?
Because even though believing in a predictable world gives me a sense of control, it comes laced with pressure. There’s a hidden message: It’s all up to me to keep myself safe. If something bad or unwanted happens, I have myself to blame for not anticipating it. But the world is big, and I am small, and what if it’s not actually all my fault?
As we head into 2025, I’m bringing surrender along as my word of the year. Of course, I’ll still try to use what’s happened before as a guide. I value thoughtful decision-making, and that hasn’t changed. After all, it’s immensely helpful to know how cell phone use before bed tends to impact my sleep or how long it typically takes me to edit a thousand words. But when my sleep is crummy anyway, or I go over my hours, maybe instead of scrambling to figure out what I missed, I’ll pause and remind myself that, sometimes, it’s just like that.
My Latest Writing & Editing
One of the biggest shifts in my business this year has been reintroducing editing services. Last year, 100 percent of my income came from writing. This year writing accounted for just under 30 percent of my earnings. Over 70 percent came from editing.
I’m thrilled at this balance. For one, diversifying my offerings provides some job security in the constantly shifting publishing landscape. Editing fits in well with writing and the rest of my life. The biggest perk of all? I’ve rediscovered my love of editing.
Here are some pieces I edited recently:
Bipolar Disorder Symptoms: From Diagnosis to Daily Life (bpHope)
Surviving Stigma: My Journey as the Child of a Parent With Bipolar Disorder (bpHope)
Bipolar Disorder Treatment: A Guide to Managing Your Symptoms (bpHope)
Chappell Roan’s Journey With Bipolar Disorder (bpHope)
Ask the Doctor: What Is Postpartum Depression? Risks, Symptoms, and Treatment (bpHope)
Book Recommendations
Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality by Renée DiResta
Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum recommended Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality during her appearance on one of Ezra Klein’s election-themed podcast episodes. I recommend the episode and I recommend the book.
Renée DiResta, now an associate research professor at Georgetown, is an online manipulation expert. In her book, she details exactly how influencers, algorithms, and online crowds work together to make content trend — creating truth in our increasingly bespoke online realities.
If this sounds like a bit of a dense explanation, you might find DiResta’s book occasionally opaque as well. To be clear, DiResta knows her stuff. I learned a lot about the patterns that underpin online information machinery. As I read the book, I understood some aspects of online misinformation sharing that had puzzled me for years despite knowing a fair amount about the topic going in. But, sometimes, I just wanted a plain language version or TL;DR. Just tell it to me straight. What should I stick on my fridge to remind myself (and teach my kids) about how to see through the tricks of the trade? So you should know this book is less self-help and more research analysis.
The analysis gives plenty to reflect on, especially given the politically charged era we’re all living in. Online discussions don’t just stay online. Even those of us who are social-media shy (me!) would do well to understand the way this part of society operates and its influence on the real world.
Recommended for people interested in why the world works the way it does, internet culture, communications, social psychology, and politics.
What’s Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body’s Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night’s Dinner, by Dan Levitt
What’s Gotten Into You is a science journalist’s take on how the parts of us came to be, from atoms to elements to cells and more. This highly researched, dense read focuses just as much on the scientists who asked the big questions and sought the answers as it does the science itself. You know a book is serious when it has both footnotes and endnotes, as this one does.
Given all that, I found it to be a sipper of a book; I couldn’t gulp it down in a weekend. Luckily, the subject matter is so inspiring and amazing that you’ll want to savor it. For me, this book made for perfect nighttime reading. I find that bite-sized awe is an ideal before-bed elixir. I thought this book was so enchanting that, even though I’d received it for free, I purchased a second audiobook version for my science-loving fourth grader.
Recommended for fans of cell biology, geology, cosmology, science journalism, and those seeking more awe in their lives.
*Thank you to JRB Communications, LLC for the advance review copy. See my disclosure statement for my policy on accepting books for review.
Continuing the theme of how bigger systems impact our individual psyches is my last book recommendation of the year: Paying the Land by graphic journalist Joe Sacco.
I encountered this book thanks to my friend, Carlye, who selected it for our book group a couple of months ago. Sacco’s book applies the tools of a graphic memoir to his investigative journalism about the Dene, a native people who call Canada’s Northwest Territories home.
Sacco’s reporting reveals a sweeping, yet specific account. Some themes were variations of ones I had learned about via the U.S.’s Native Americans, like the impact of boarding schools. Others, like the community’s differing opinions on fracking, were less familiar to me. This book leans into complexity, which I crave more by the day.
Recommended for those interested in history, investigative journalism, indigenous communities, environmentalism, social psychology, trauma psychology, and graphic novels.
Browse more books on my Bookshop | Read more reviews on my Goodreads
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2 thoughts on “The Prediction Fallacy”