There's an article that gleans some life lessons from House of Cards - finding diamonds in the rough that is the character of Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey). One episode quote that gets at what I want to discuss is one he made to his House protégé Jackie:
"If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table"The author, @robynrl, draws the conclusion that one shouldn't just let events happen to him or her. That's often sage, no doubt, but I'd add that it also addresses how to exercise influence over a situation: question the premises!
When is it better to reject the entire "game" over playing within its confines? We don't always have to cause a ruckus by acting destructively to "turn over the table," sometimes we just walk away from it, or look at it a different way. The important point isn't the imagery, it's to not assume the way the "deck is stacked" has to be a given.
Another entombment we often hear is, "if you don't like the way your story ends, rewrite the ending!" What I asked myself this month is, why don't we ever tell people to rewrite the beginning? So often in life situation, what we do many moves back has a large - if not always decisive - impact on the ending. Sure, sure, we should focus on what we can do until it ends, but we can't be blind that many moves ago, we already had an impact.
Too often, this is seen as a cause for melancholy and regret; after all, "I left my time machine on Earth, did you bring yours?!" (A fun Stargate Atlantis quote that sums up the futility that leads to exasperation by nay-saying past decisions.) What I would suggest is it doesn't have to be a time-traveling pipe dream or excuse to exasperate your friends by pretending all is too late, if looked at the right way.
Psychology recognizes the impact that internalized narratives have on our way of thinking. For examples, two authors I've been reading, Drs. Michelle Skeen and Brené Brown, for example, both "our stories" can keep us remaking similar mistakes if we don't raise them to awareness, engage them, question them, and do some editing. Significantly, what is extremely helpful is to ditch the advice some will give you to just "quit thinking" thoughts that are part of your "internal beliefs." On the contrary, you have to initially recognize them and stop trying to push them away before you can permit them less hold on your actions and subsequent thoughts, as well as recast them in a new dye.
In Game Theory, we study repeating games. If one stage has an outcome that is carried over to the next stage, that feedback will likely continue to have an impact (for better or worse). We can't change the past, but if we interrupt the instant xeroxing of the elements of our "beginnings" and rewrite the beginning of the next stage, the next challenge, the perception of the next opportunity, then that feedback - that carried balance from life's ledger - will be handled in a different way. We can change how the deck is stacked.
Without any quantum wormholes necessary, we can put another leaf in the table!
