Missing out and the multiverse.

Budget speech for nurses.

Welcome to Ideothetic Flow, my newsletter sharing my reflections on finding balance, sufficiency, and security.

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Hi!

Speaking up for nurses

I normally leave links at the end, but I wanted to open with this in case you only have a short while to read this email. Louis Ng made a speech at the budget debates speaking up for better working conditions for our public healthcare nurses.

I had the opportunuty to be present in some of the background work to this, and I do feel strongly for this cause. When Alcina was hospitalised at KTPH in 2021, we both saw the tip of the iceberg of the challenges our nurses go through. Hearing directly from nurses and researching on this issue, I realise even more that they are putting on a brave and resilient front so that we can feel comforted. Please do like and share if this resonates with you.

Missing out and the multiverse

Joy's school had an anniversary mass this month. I mixed up the dates and didn't sign her up to attend. One of the other parents who did sent a video of the kids singing and dancing at the mass. When I showed it to Joy, she burst into tears. It took me by some surprise, I didn't expect her to take so badly to missing this out. What was even more surprising is that other parents whose kids didn't go, said their kids also melted down upon seeing the video.

Even at this young age, the fear of missing out already exists. Its built into us after all, part of our fear of being excluded from the group, a death sentence in darker times.

A job offer I was hoping to get didn’t work out, so I'm back to job hunting (though I’ve got another short term contract to keep me busy). There’s a different fear of missing out in the job hunt. It's tempting to get stuck on wondering if there's something better out there between each job listing. Better growth, more pay, better environment, the list goes on. We only ever get a few jobs in our lifetime, so getting it wrong is scary.

I find myself getting more comfortable about missing out these days. I realise that missing out is simply a part of existence. I’m always rejecting an infinite number of other things, for whatever it is I am doing it in the moment. Of course, I still try and make a good choice, but beyond that, I ought not to think too much of all the things I’m not doing.

To miss out presupposes that we know how things would have happened if we took a different path. We don’t. It's tempting to think that, if I did X, I'd now have Y.

Multiverses are popular these days, and all those paths we didn’t take are like a multiverse, branching off into outcomes far beyond what we would have imagined, rather than just a small change in the universe before us. We have no real right to anything we missed out, merely a narrow view of what we think could have happened.

Perhaps, in the infinite chaos of life, all our decisions somehow regress to a median. There is always something better, and something worse. We are always in the middle. I’m finding that what helps me be comfortable with missing out is the acceptance of this median. Recognising that things could be better, but they aren't. Also being thankful that things aren't worse.

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Other things…

An open invitation for conversation.

If you would be interested in having a short, targeted chat about anything, drop a reply and i’d be most happy to schedule a coffee or a video call. Perhaps there was a post that resonated which you want to unpack, a problem you want to talk through, or just want someone to listen to whatever is on your mind.

The agenda is purely up to you, and I promise a duty of confidence over anything shared.

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Take care and have a good week!

James