The word reckoning shares its root with reckful and reckless, but unlike recklessness, reckoning stays firmly on the side of calculation. To reckon is to count, to enumerate, to tally up possibilities and outcomes. It is the act of believing that if you analyze enough, you can predict what will happen next.
Reckoning promises clarity. It says: If I list the variables, weigh the tradeoffs, and run the numbers, the right answer will reveal itself. It invites you to believe that life is a problem that can be solved.
But reckoning often mistakes what can be measured for what actually matters.
Reckoning is what leads you to build a spreadsheet for dating—rating people on income, education, availability, geographic proximity—only to discover later that none of those columns predicted how you would feel in their presence, or who you would become alongside them.
Reckoning is what keeps you in a stale job because the salary and benefits make you feel safe, even as your days flatten and your energy drains. It’s what convinces you that becoming an artist, starting a business, or traveling to India is irresponsible—not because it is, but because it cannot be fully modeled in advance.
As I’m using the word, reckoning is the attempt to control the future through calculation when the future is asking to be discovered with openness and presence instead.
Reckoning is the belief that you can predict outcomes if you just count, analyze, and compute possibilities as rigorously as possible.
Reckoning is not the same as thinking or planning. It is thinking in service of certainty. It is planning in service of fear. It replaces discernment with optimization and calls that wisdom.
There are moments when reckoning is useful. But when you are standing at the edge of change and becoming, reckoning becomes a trap. It keeps you circling the same known variables, asking the wrong questions again and again.
Today, I’m noticing where I’m still trying to reckon my way into safety instead of stepping into the unknown. I wonder what would happen if I stopped trying to predict the outcome and paid attention instead to what wants to move.