174. Predicting Experiences

You’re thinking of trying something you’ve never done before, so you start looking for information about it. You want to learn as much as you can before you actually try it. You investigate every aspect and every detail until you have a strong understanding. Now you can imagine how it will go once you do it. You can see yourself doing it and you have an idea of how you’ll feel during and after. You’ve developed a complete prediction of your future experience and you believe this is what will happen.

Your prediction then becomes the framework for your future actions. What you do and do not do follows from what you have predicted will happen and how you think it will make you feel. If you think there is some part of the experience that will be bad for you, you will avoid it. Similarly, if you think there is a part you will enjoy, you will pursue it. What you will avoid and pursue follows directly from your prediction.

The result is that you limit your experience before you even get started. You’ve put too much emphasis on your prediction. You’ve taken it as a certainty when it’s really just a product of your own judgment. You’ve cut yourself off from potential benefits because of your confidence in the accuracy of your prediction. For it is always possible that you will respond quite differently from what you’ve predicted. What you predict will feel horrible might actually turn out to be a pleasant experience.

By elevating your prediction to certainty, you became attached to it. You began to see the boundaries of your experience as the boundaries of your prediction. This causes your future attention and actions to be more narrow and limited than they otherwise would be.

If you can allow yourself space from your prediction, if you can see it as an object separate from you, then you grant yourself the opportunity to act freely and without limitation. You can then approach your new experience with a fresh perspective, open to whatever comes to you, including the possibility of joy.