I feel compelled to touch on a particularly frustrating quality that I find in quite a few people, and that is the inability to commit to something. I need to qualify my use of the word "commit" here - I am not talking about committing to a loved one or committing to owning a pet. Those are decisions that take a lot of thought and should be considered carefully. What I am talking about is the kind of commitment that leads you to following through on attending an event you're invited to, or sticking around long enough to see where a conversation goes.

I guess what I mean is allowing yourself the time to focus long enough on a particular, discrete thing (person, idea, newspaper) although you think you can or can't see any value in it. Let me put this in context. Let's assume you spend an evening with an interesting guy or girl. There is nothing wrong about this, in fact it is all good, to coin a phrase from "Good Burger" (1997). You are lucky to be in the presence of someone who pleases you. What's more is, you have no clue what tomorrow will bring (except a few repeatable things) or even what will happen in the next few hours. Things could change; you could be attacked by Lilliputians, get lost in your bathroom, or even qualify for a credit card (VISA made me write that). Thus, there is little you can predict about the immediate future except a continuation, however tenuous, of the present - this guy or girl is interesting and I am enjoying them.

My question is: why halt current events instead of let them run their course? You can rest assured that our example will have an end, any number of endings, based on a slew of possible actions. I think that all too often, people want to see the end before it is time, like how we jump paragraphs in books or read the synopsis before we see the flick.

How we listen to talking heads predict the future.

There are two ways that people deal with predicting the future, both involving control - if I can predict the future, I have some control over it in a granular, decision-tree-based way. The first way is to project forward and imagine an outcome that is pleasing. In this way, optimists embrace the world through their ability to assume positive outcomes. The other way is to see either an outcome which is displeasing or unknown - unknown, in this case, is the same as displeasing because I can't be pleased by something I don't know - which frames the position of a pessimist whose outlook is often limited by an inability to overcome conceptual barriers.

Yes, you might fall in love. Yes, you might misinterpret someone's actions and learn them later. Yes, you quite possibly might be confused, heaven forbid. All of these, if you notice, are possible outcomes that one must be prepared for. By artificially limiting your outcomes through fear of the unknown you automatically limit your pool of experiences. And since you learn from experience, you are impacting your learning ability. Way to make yourself stupid, stupid. The best way I see to avoid that happening is to make all attempts to see things through, although in many cases, it is not up to you. Be receptive - be a Phillips and a Flathead - and learn to go with the flow. As an exercise, try not steering a conversation, just contributing to it. If someone says, "call me", actually call them.

Woody Allen once said, "Seventy percent of success in life is showing up". So do it and realize that the more you show up (which is to say, surrender to life by going with the flow), the less missed opportunities you will accrue and the more experience you will gain. And we can all live with that.