Vachon Imagined

A militaristic mindset is a rigid mindset. It has two essential speeds: slow and fast. Go and stop.

There is a reason for this. Grayness doesn’t always have a seat at the table.

Imagine a football coach, moments before a play, pulling the team together and asking if everyone wants some cupcakes, backrubs, compliments, and encouragement before they run the play.

It’s not only inappropriate. It’s ridiculous.

The coach has a job. The players have a job. To some extent, they have to trust that the coach has done theirs and that the players have done theirs. The preparation is complete. The plan is in place. The moment arrives.

Go.

And then gray says, “Oh yeah. Here I am, in all my glory. Don’t discount me now.”

The underdog appears with a voice that came from nowhere.

The ball takes a strange bounce.

The wind changes.

A player slips.

A referee makes a call.

The best-trained, most dominant team in the league loses.

This is where the militaristic mindset panics.

Because preparation can control preparation, but it cannot control the outcome.

We can’t control the wind.

The wind controls us.

We can’t control the rain.

The rain controls us.

We can prepare for it. We can train for it. We can build systems around it. We can become more capable of responding to it. But we cannot command the world to behave according to our plan.

And maybe even that is too simplistic.

What I know is that the rigid, fixed mindset often behaves the way it does because it is scared.

Scared of uncertainty.

Scared of vulnerability.

Scared of being wrong.

Scared of losing control.

And underneath all of those fears is the one fear we eventually have to confront:

One day, I’m going to die.

And I won’t be able to control the outcome.

No amount of discipline changes that.

No plan changes that.

No rank changes that.

No preparation changes that.

The rigid mind spends its life trying to eliminate uncertainty because uncertainty reminds it of mortality. It builds rules, systems, hierarchies, procedures, and plans because they create the feeling that the world can be contained.

But life has never agreed to be contained.

This is not an argument against discipline. Discipline matters. Preparation matters. Structure matters. There are moments when “go” and “stop” are exactly what is required. A soldier cannot debate every command while lives are at stake. A football team cannot hold a philosophical symposium in the huddle.

There are moments for rigidity.

But rigidity is not the only reality.

Reality is also the gray area that enters the room after the plan has been made.

And that’s where life happens.

The coach prepares.

The team executes.

Then something neither of them anticipated takes the field.

That’s fate.

That’s chance.

That’s life.

And the mature mind doesn’t need to pretend it controls these things. It learns to move with them.

The wind doesn’t have to be conquered.

The rain doesn’t have to be defeated.

The unexpected doesn’t have to become the enemy.

We can prepare without believing preparation guarantees the outcome.

We can be disciplined without becoming rigid.

We can have a plan without worshiping the plan.

Because ultimately, the goal isn’t to control life.

It’s to become capable of living it.