Let Life Surprise You in a Good Way

Your brain will never stop predicting danger. But you can become aware of its predictions, open your heart to what actually is, and let life surprise you in a good way every once in a while.

The thing that saves your life can also sabotage your life.

I’m cycling down a series of hairpin curves in a city park when it happens.

I round a tight turn and hit the brakes when I come upon a car going slower than me. It happens all the time on this route. I used to get frustrated, wishing drivers would pull over and let me pass. They never do, so I’ve learned to accept the creeping pace the rest of the way down the hill. I listen to the birds I can now hear without the wind whistling past my ears.

This time is different, though—for the first time ever, the driver pulls onto the shoulder to let me pass.

I pull alongside the car, look over to thank them, and I’m almost tongue-tied with shock. It’s in this moment I become aware my mind had been doing something designed to save my life: it had been making predictions, in this case about the type of person who would be kind enough to make way for me.

Our minds are prediction-making machines.

In How Emotions are Made, psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that our brains protect us by making predictions. For instance, if you’re walking through a grassy meadow and you see a long, straight object suddenly appear next to your foot, you don’t consciously think, Hey, there’s a 50/50 chance that’s a snake—just to be safe I’ll jump back. Rather, your brain automatically engages in a series of exercises:

• It predicts the long, straight thing is a snake.

• It triggers your nervous system to jump back.

• It reviews the situation to see if its prediction was accurate.

This all happens outside of your conscious awareness. If its prediction was accurate, you’re safe and you look like a savvy outdoorsman. If its prediction was inaccurate, you look around hoping no one saw you acting so silly.

Pay careful attention and you’ll see your brain is constantly making predictions about what is going to happen in the very next moment.

You open the mailbox and it’s making a prediction about whether or not the postal carrier came yet. You take your first sip of your Starbucks and it’s making a prediction about how hot it will be. You pick up a glass of milk and it’s making a prediction about how creamy it will be, which is why you almost spit it out when you discover you accidentally picked up a glass of orange juice instead. You don’t dislike orange juice. The problem is, your brain didn’t predict orange juice.

As I look through the car’s window, I expect milk and get orange juice instead.

I realize my brain predicted a woman, probably my age or older. She looks like the kind of person I’d hang out with, probably votes like me, reads the books I read, and goes to a church like mine. Instead, it’s a young guy I wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. He’d beat me up in a bar fight before he’d ever buy me a beer. Then again, that’s just my brain making more predictions, isn’t it?

If we’re not aware of our brain’s predilection for prediction, we can add a lot of unnecessary prejudice and pain to the world.

• Our biases hang out in our predictions.

• Our judgementalism hangs out in our predictions.

• Our self-righteousness hangs out in our predictions.

This is why the media algorithms are so addictive. Your brain is constantly making predictions about the way the world works and turning to modern media to confirm them. The algorithm has already mapped your predictions, and it feeds you only content that confirms them, and the confirmation is like crack to your unconscious mind. All other information becomes like orange juice when we predicted milk—we spit it out.

Our unconscious mind would rather live in an unsafe world it can predict than in a safe world it can’t predict.

I’m still contemplating this thirty minutes later when I cycle into our neighborhood and catch myself in another kind of prediction.

I went for a longer ride than planned. It’s a Sunday afternoon and my wife and I are planning to go for a walk. My mind predicts she’ll be annoyed by my tardiness, and I start rehearsing my justifications for the longer ride. By the time I get home, I’m almost angry at her for being angry with me. I become aware my heart has closed to something that hasn’t even happened, and I make a conscious effort to open it to what actually is.

It turns out she went for a walk with a friend and hasn’t given me a second thought.

Your brain will never stop predicting danger.

But you can become aware of it.

Open your heart to what actually is.

And let life surprise you in a good way every once in a while.

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• What are you already aware your brain predicts? If you’re not sure, come back in a few hours and tell us what you notice. Or just feel free to share your opinion about these ideas—I’ll be sure to reply!

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