The World Is Full of Surprises

The other day, I had the opportunity to meet someone I hadn't seen in a long time.
I headed to the cafe where we were meeting, tracing the threads of my memory to recall when we had last spoken.
The image of him in my mind was neatly preserved, exactly as it had been when I heard about his situation several years ago.
I was sure he was still burning with passion for that job, living the same unchanging daily life.

"Hey, long time no see."

The expression on his face as he said this was somehow brighter than before, and the air he carried was completely different.
The conversation, which began with harmless updates on our lives, would soon vividly shatter my fixed ideas.

"Actually, I quit my job. I've started farming back at my parents' place, something I'd always wanted to do."

"Huh..."
I was speechless.
Without me knowing, his life had taken a major turn.
As I stood frozen in surprise, he continued with a laugh.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? I talked to [Name] (a mutual acquaintance) about it."

At those words, I felt a double shock.
One was the fact that his life had changed dramatically without my knowledge.
The other was the fact that this change was already circulating around me as "information known to those in the know."
I alone had been left behind with old information.
It was a strange feeling, as if I had become Urashima Taro.

✅ Blind faith is never good

This incident presented me with a lesson.
It is the extremely obvious, yet easily forgotten truth that "you should not blindly believe in a phenomenon based on a single piece of information."
We find it difficult to update information once we have input it.
Especially if that information is comfortable or convincing to us, we tuck it away in the drawers of our hearts as a "fixed fact" and stop doubting it.

There was a similar "surprise" at the company where I work.
Sitting next to me was a colleague who was always serious and worked harder than anyone else.
He was deeply trusted by his superiors and admired by his juniors.
All that came out of his mouth were improvement proposals and positive words about work.
Seeing that, I had assumed on my own that "he must be the type to bury his bones in this company."
I had even vaguely thought that I, who felt a little stifled by the daily grind, would be the one to leave this place first.

But one lunch break, another colleague told me a shocking fact.
"You know [Name] (the colleague sitting next to me)? Apparently, he's quitting soon. He's already decided on his next path."

I couldn't believe my ears. Him, the workaholic? Before me?
My mind was filled with question marks. However, when I listened carefully, it turned out he had been steadily preparing for independence on the side for several years.
What I had been seeing was only one side of him.
I had just been creating a story on my own that "because he is always working hard, this job must be his calling and he will surely continue it forever."

Blind faith might sometimes give us a comfortable sense of security.
But behind the scenes, reality is changing shape every moment.
When we miss the signs of that change, we are left with nothing but to be "surprised."

✅ The habit of considering as many possibilities as possible

If it ends with just being "surprised," that's fine.
If it becomes a funny story, or if it's just a matter of being a little embarrassed about my own ignorance, like in my case this time.
However, continuing to blindly believe in one piece of information carries the risk of sometimes bringing oneself damage that is too great to express.

For example, business transactions.
Suppose you believe the reputation from several years ago that Company A is a solid, excellent company and sign a large contract without any doubt.
However, management might be deteriorating under the surface, and one day you might suddenly receive news of their bankruptcy.
This is a serious situation that cannot be dismissed as a mere "surprise."

The same applies to private human relationships.
The assumption that "that person surely understands me" can, before one knows it, become a heavy expectation and a burden on the other person.
And then, one day, the relationship suddenly comes to an end. By the time you lament, "Why? How?" it is already too late.

That is why I want to consciously develop the "habit of considering as many possibilities as possible."
This does not mean that you should always be suspicious of things. Rather, it is the opposite.
Instead of judging events or people in front of you based on only one side, thinking "it must be this way," you should try to grasp them from multiple angles and in three dimensions, thinking "there might be this possibility, or there might be a completely different side."
It is an important training for maintaining flexibility of thought.

When I was surprised to hear that my colleague was quitting, if I had had the imagination to add the possibility that "perhaps he was working hard for his next step" to the fact that "he was working hard," my surprise would have been slightly softened.
I might have even been able to support his decision from the bottom of my heart.

✅ Summary

This world is truly full of surprises.
People's hearts, the state of companies, and social norms are not necessarily the same as they were yesterday.
The world is constantly being updated in places I don't know, and new stories are being woven.

Sometimes we are bewildered and surprised by the speed of that change. We try to walk a new path while clutching an old map, and we get lost.
However, that may not be something to be pessimistic about at all.

Escaping the mental stagnation of "blind faith" and acquiring the habit of "considering various possibilities."
That is a modest art of living to survive in an uncertain world.
It can also be said to be a sincere attitude of opening one's heart to the world and others, and trying to accept their complexity and richness in their entirety.

It is precisely because the world is full of "surprises" that we can learn and grow.
There is the joy of knowing what you didn't know, and the fun of being able to see what you couldn't see before.

The new side of a friend I hadn't seen in a long time, and the sight of a colleague silently carving out a future, were both big "surprises" for me.
But that surprise was an irreplaceable gift that blew a fresh breeze into my rigid world and broadened my horizons.

Now, what kind of "surprise" is waiting next?
I think I will gently put the old map in my bag and start walking down the unknown path of tomorrow with a little excitement.

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