A perfect world? Which one is that?

“In a perfect world…”

How many times have you heard that, or said it yourself? The human yearning for things to be better, more conducive, more acceptable, seems to be insatiable. We bring our children up in the pretence that the world is far better than it really is; that life is manageable and addressable, that if we work hard enough or pray hard enough, all will be well.

How has that worked out for us?

If you study economics, one of the first peculiarities you will come across is that the models used by economists are entirely unreasonable. Or, to put it a different way, they assume that certain ideal conditions prevail. Ceteris paribus—other things being equal—you will be told, we can expect certain results to emerge.

But other things are never equal, except in the musings of theoreticians. We keep attempting to impose order upon disorder, but the world is inherently messy, uncertain, and unpredictable. We keep trying to do the reductionist thing—assuming away the complexity so we can understand and control things—but the complexity just lies in wait, ready to ambush us.

Must we really bring up our children, or conduct their education, under such false premises? The intention is good, certainly. We do not wish to trouble young minds with harsh realities. Simplifying the world for the purpose of study allows us to isolate constituent forces and address the components of a problem.

But the complexity and the imperfections of the world are ever-present. If we think simplistically all our lives, we will behave like simpletons in fervent denial of reality.

What if, instead of sugar-coating life, we taught children to embrace uncertainty? Instead of pretending they live in a world that rewards effort and virtue in neat, linear ways, we could prepare them for the turbulence that is the norm rather than the exception.

This is not about being morose or cynical. It is about resilience. Children who are allowed to fail and to see failure as a natural part of life, not a catastrophe, will grow into adults who can take setbacks in their stride. When they encounter rejection, loss, or unexpected detours, they will be far less prone to despair or paralysis.

Consider the young professional who enters the job market believing that degrees and diligence alone will guarantee success. When the economy slumps or their industry is disrupted, they flounder, because they were never taught to expect randomness. They were taught to plan but not to improvise.

Or take the entrepreneur who believes a great idea, well-executed, is a ticket to success. They peruse case studies of those who made it big, but those case studies never mention the millions who tried equally hard and failed. When their first venture collapses, they take it personally, rather than understanding that randomness—luck, timing, circumstances—plays an outsized role in outcomes.

Teaching people about uncertainty is not about making them fatalistic. It is about helping them develop a mindset that factors in variability, that can pivot when the unexpected occurs, and that understands the world is an uneven playing field.

Our education systems have not caught up with this reality. We teach history as though it followed a logical trajectory, driven by grand plans and deliberate decisions. We teach science as though it is a smooth progression of discovery, rather than a chaotic process of trial and error. We teach business as though it is a set of rules to be followed, rather than a game of probabilities.

The most successful people in any field, however, have a deep appreciation for randomness. They do not merely build a plan; they build optionality. They understand that markets crash, revolutions happen, pandemics emerge, and sudden opportunities appear. They do not sit around lamenting unpredictability; they build lives and careers that can withstand it.

Now, imagine if we accepted uncertainty as a fundamental truth.

What if politicians stopped pretending they could script the future? What if, instead of rigid five-year plans, they focused on adaptability? Instead of promising to eliminate downturns, they worked on creating societies that recover faster from shocks?

Or take financial markets. We idolize investors who act as though they have a crystal ball, making grand bets on specific trends. But the real winners hedge their risks, knowing they cannot predict the future but can prepare for multiple outcomes.

This is not a recipe for gloomy forbearance. It is simply a more realistic approach to living. If we accept that life will often shock and upend us, we can stop wasting energy on futile attempts to control the uncontrollable. We can live with the knowledge that randomness is part of the fabric of existence. That does not mean we stop striving; it means we strive with awareness, with preparedness, with humility.

We do not need to live in cloud-cuckoo land, pretending we can bend the universe to our wishes. Nor do we need to wallow in despair, overwhelmed by chaos. The best way to live is in acceptance: neither naïve nor nihilistic, but clear-eyed about reality.

In a perfect world, we would not need to think this way. But in this world—the real one—we must.

(Sunday Nation, 2 March 2025)

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