There is security, and then there is security.
The aspiration to security governs us to unbelievable degrees. In fact, when people walk about this planet shouting at the top of their voices that they are searching for happiness, what they actually mean is that they want exemption from worry.
We want to feel safe. That is a fact.
And you know what? Up to a certain level, that is reasonable.
And if we continue that line of argument — beyond a certain reasonable level, the aspiration to security leads to catastrophic results.
Let us explain slowly, because I am talking here about your life.
We are born into a chaos of uncertainty. A dark and unpredictable abyss that drops the stomach out of us with terror.
Think I am exaggerating? Try having a serious conversation with a three-month-old whose hunger is troubling him. You have no idea what insane fear he is experiencing.
Think about it. That infant feels a sudden and unexplained bodily distress. He has no concept of what it is, no concept of how to stop the suffering, and worse — even if he knew what needed doing, he would have to admit that he is entirely helpless and cannot initiate any action to ease it.
He is completely dependent on his mother.
Thank goodness the overwhelming majority of mothers do their work properly.
But when we grow up, the concrete aspiration to win the calming embrace of a mother is replaced by an abstract and hazy aspiration to feel secure.
What is this security? Where does one obtain it?
Here is the uncomfortable answer. It is not a state of the world. It is a state of you — specifically, your accumulated evidence that you have survived things going wrong.
Which means it cannot be obtained by arranging for nothing to go wrong. That method produces the opposite: a person with no evidence at all, who therefore requires ever more certainty before acting, and grows more fragile the more carefully they live.
The phrase "when it's completely safe" is, as I have said before, a precise synonym for "never". Not because caution is foolish, but because the condition you are waiting for is not a condition that arrives. It is a feeling you were supposed to build on the way.