I found myself talking about Kenny Rogers this week. More specifically, his song The Gambler. If you know the song, there's a good chance it started playing somewhere in your head as soon as I mentioned it. The part I was referencing was the familiar idea of knowing when to hold on, when to let go, and when it's time to walk away.
It came up in a conversation with a high school student who was trying to navigate a difficult conversation with a parent. The student understood what they wanted to say and had a perspective that mattered. The problem was that the parent wasn't particularly open to hearing it. As the parent became more defensive, the student became more defensive too. Before long, neither person was really listening anymore. That's when I brought up The Gambler.
I told the student that sometimes maturity is knowing when you don't have to defend yourself. You can listen. You can be quiet. You can know that your perspective still matters without needing the other person to understand it in that particular moment. There may be another opportunity to have the conversation when both people are more open to hearing each other.
I've thought about that conversation several times since because it gets at something I see often, both in my work and in everyday life. We like things to be clear. We want to know who is right and who is wrong, what the answer is, and what we're supposed to do next. There is a comfort in seeing life in black and white. The problem is that much of life isn't black and white. Most of us spend a lot of our lives somewhere in the gray.
Gray asks us to consider that we may have been right about some things and wrong about others. It allows us to believe something strongly and still remain curious. It gives us permission to change our minds when we have new information. It also gives other people permission to change theirs. That sounds fairly simple until we're actually asked to do it.
I think one of the reasons gray can be so uncomfortable is that black and white gives us a sense of control. When I know exactly what I believe, what I'm going to do, or what the outcome should be, there is certainty in that. Reconsidering can feel like losing some of that certainty. Changing course can look like weakness. Walking away from an argument can feel like the other person won.
But what if none of those things is necessarily true? Sometimes it takes more internal security to reconsider than it does to double down.
Think about something as simple as going for a run. You decide in the morning that you're going to run five miles. You put on your shoes, head out the door, and five miles is the plan. If you approach that plan in black and white, five miles becomes the only acceptable outcome. You said you were going to run five miles, so you're going to finish five miles. Maybe your knee starts hurting at mile two. Maybe a thunderstorm rolls in. Maybe you simply realize that your body doesn't have five miles in it that day. If the only options are success or failure, turning around feels like failure.
Gray gives you another option. You can acknowledge that five miles was the plan and that the plan made sense when you made it. You can also recognize that you have new information now. You can run two miles. You can walk home. You can call someone for a ride. You can try again another day. You didn't fail at the plan. You responded to the reality you were actually in.
I think we need that kind of flexibility in far more important parts of our lives too.
We need it in relationships when we realize a conversation is no longer productive. We need it at work when the path we thought would be right no longer fits. We need it when we learn something that challenges a belief we've held for years. We need it when someone disappoints us and we have to decide what that means for the relationship. We need it when the expectations we had for ourselves no longer make sense for the season of life we're actually living. The older I get, the more I think wisdom has something to do with our ability to pay attention to what the moment is telling us.
Living in the gray doesn't mean we don't have convictions. It doesn't mean there aren't things worth standing firmly behind. There are values, boundaries, relationships, and moments when holding your ground matters tremendously. The gray is having enough flexibility to recognize that holding your ground isn't always the same thing as moving forward. Maybe that's why The Gambler came to mind in the first place. The wisdom isn't in always holding on, and it isn't in always walking away. The wisdom is being able to recognize what the particular moment requires of you.
There is a lot of life between right and wrong, success and failure, staying and leaving, holding on and letting go. Maybe we don't need to rush so quickly to get out of it.
A Question to Carry With You
Where in your life might you benefit from giving yourself, or someone else, a little more room for gray?
About the Author
Sarah Currie, Ph.D., LCMHC, is a counselor, writer, and speaker exploring the questions that shape how we live, connect, and grow.