Butterfly victories

 Don't let expectations deny your victories. It's natural to have a strongly idealized view of cause and effect: -If this happens, then that will happen-. The expectation is strong for positive and for negative cases, but the real world is rarely that linear.

The problem is that once we do "this", it opens a multiverse of possible "thats". The more complex the problem, the more potential "thats" there will be. Some potential outcomes will be strongly correlated with the original expectation, but it will often be more of a butterfly effect. Sometimes we can see the dial moving in the right direction, and sometimes we don't appreciate what we've put in motion as progress.

Underestimating complexity is the norm for us. That's actually a good thing, and probably a necessary thing in the pursuit of real change. If most of us had a true grasp of the complexity of our goals, we'd never try. And trying is the only way to bring us closer to the horizon of success.

To be an agent of change requires an acceptance that change will have unanticipated aspects we don't like. If the change is necessary, so are the unintended consequences. If we allow those to completely obscure the positive changes, we can spiral into a mode of premature assumption of failure that makes eventual success impossible, or we may prolong the effort through throwing away progress by changing course too quickly.

Try. Expect hiccups. Look for any aspect of change that you can celebrate. Celebrate it. Move forward. Stay on mission. Don't make unnecessary enemies. Don't throw away unnecessary friends. The world is old. If all the problems were easy to solve, they'd be solved by now.