The year is now 2025! By the time we reach its end twelve months hence, fully one-fourth of the twenty-first century will be behind us.

Between now and then lies a new year of opportunity. What will you make of it?

As for me, I began the new year making piles of snow.

Winter Storm Blair

Sunday was the final day of our holiday break, the eve of our return to work and school, but nature had other plans. Here in Louisville, almost eight inches of snow fell, along with a hard glaze of sleet and freezing rain.

Monday morning brought a couple more inches, and the city fell into that beautiful hush that only fresh snowfall can bring.

So, Sunday afternoon and again the next morning, I shoveled.

Under Pressure

Science and laziness have taught me that the pressure of footsteps and car tires melts snow, which then very predictably refreezes. Walking and driving before shoveling transforms fluffy, scoopable flakes into impenetrable ice.

Thus, procrastination after snowfall is usually a tacit decision to live with slick surfaces until the temperature increases (which is not predicted any time soon). Since my car resides at the bottom of a steep driveway, that simply won’t do if I intend to go anywhere anytime soon.

It was not a chore I looked forward to. It was in the prior century when I last had the back of a twenty-something. I wondered, do we really need to go anywhere today? There are travel advisories everywhere within two hundred miles. Maybe this is a time to take a breath, accept things as they are, let go of my agenda, and take a couple snow days.

To shovel, or not to shovel. That is the question.

Except really that’s just a specific instance of a much bigger question, one that each of us will undoubtedly face in the coming year: to act, or to accept?

Hard Questions

Should we accept the future as it comes? Or should we act and bend it to our will? Is that even possible? And if it's not possible to change things, can we find a way to accept them? What do we do when the answer to both questions is no?

How do we decide?

Taking action—shoveling eight-plus inches of snow and ice—had a cost. It was physically demanding, even painful at times.

But not shoveling would have had a cost, too. The task could have gotten more difficult, even impossible. A two-day disruption could have become a ten-day setback.

Harder Questions

The real decisions of life and leadership—the ones that test us most—manifest in our work lives in myriad ways:

• To go for the promotion, or stay in your current role?
• To accept the terms, or push the negotiation?
• To stick with the strategy, or change course?
• To cope with the negative aspects of your job, or quit and look elsewhere?
• To work with an underperforming employee, or let them go?

In these most consequential decisions, your knowledge and experience are potentially helpful (though also potentially harmful), but never sufficient.

More Wisdom from Dead Greeks

As Heraclitus observed twenty-five centuries ago, one never steps in the same river twice. It is always flowing, always changing, always different. Knowing what the river was is helpful, but it does not guarantee you know what it is now.

Likewise, one never makes exactly the same decision twice. The context shifts. The world changes. We change—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. What worked in 2024 might or might not work in 2025.

Action—shoveling the driveway—appears to have been the right decision this time, with below-freezing temperatures expected for at least the next week. But if a sudden warm-up was forecasted next time, it would have been a waste of time and ibuprofen.

And of course, weather forecasts can be wrong. We don't get to know for sure in advance.

Choose and Rechoose

This is the real nature of decision-making.

In complex, adaptive systems (that is, any system that includes humans), it is not about choosing action or acceptance, north or south, east or west. Rather, it is a process of continuously choosing, evaluating, and rechoosing.

In a complex world, we do not analyze and then decide. We decide and then analyze.

Then we decide again, and repeat as circumstances demand, which could be twenty-five years or twenty-five minutes from now.

The river doesn’t stop flowing, nor do the days, weeks, and years.

For each of us, 2025 will hold many complex decisions, some of them exciting, others harrowing. Many will involve a choice between accepting things as they are or taking action to change them.

We cannot predict which path will be better, but we can be mindful of a few truths that will increase our odds of choosing well:

• Acting deliberately is not the same as reacting reflexively.
• Real acceptance is not the same as passive resistance. The former brings peace, the latter only chronic pain.
• False dichotomies are everywhere. The middle way is often the right way. My choice was not really binary when I picked up the snow shovel. I could have cleared just enough of a path and let nature handle the rest.

Of course, had I done so, I would have denied myself the satisfaction of declaring total victory over the snow with that last glorious scoop. Although exhausting, it was quite satisfying. This brings me to my last caveat:

You have to know what you really want in the first place.

The Hardest Question

That is often the hardest question of all. What matters to you? Who matters to you? How do you want to spend this next precious year?

Do you need to take bold action to move in a new direction? Or is now a time to notice that things are pretty good as they are? Is there a middle way that balances both?

As we enter this twenty-fifth year of the twenty-first century, take a moment to reflect on what it is you really want.

Find in yourself that same beautiful hush that comes with a clean blanket of snow, then choose, see what happens, and choose again.

Happy New Year,

Greg

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