Uncertainty is the only certainty there is...

 

There are many gates, portals, entrances we must pass through in life. Some are small, difficult to get through, others much larger and a no problem at all to navigate, and then there are the other ones.

The ones we didn't know we were going through until we got stuck.

We know we need to go through and not stay stuck, we just don't know how to. The other side may seem too diffuse and uncertain, and what we left behind us although perhaps no longer relevant, seem more certain, and so we get stuck in between.

Uncertainty, for some of us is highly unsettling, and although not absolutely sure of our next move, sometimes the uncertainty makes us move in a direction, any direction, as long as it stops the feelings of uncertainty (stuck between the known and unknown). Some of us have a great tolerance for uncertainty, others very little, and many of us swing in between the two.

As humans, we seem to have a need for order. The world we inhabit is full of unpredictability, we are thrown curve balls and so we seek to find universal laws that will help us predict what our natural world will come up with next. For 350 odd years classical science has been steadily moving towards the goal of discovering these universal laws, and with the establishment of such we have been able to face the future with confidence and much creativity.

Question is though; imposing a universal law and trying to make the natural world bend to it may prove to be less helpful in dealing with uncertainty rather than if we were to keep  fairly flexible paradigms.

Expectations may be experienced as "reality", and although they feel like certainties, this may not necessarily be so. If what we expect, happens often enough, pretty soon we may begin to think it will/should always happen this way, and subsequently we may experience it as a "certainty".

So let us go back to being stuck in beween certainty and uncertainty, we know for certain (so we think anyway) what we have left behind, and before us lies the "unknown". Probably many of us will be tempted to begin the "what if?" game. What if we should have waited longer? What if we missed something? What if we didn't understand it correctly? What if it was just an accidental occurrence? What if she.....? What if he......? and so on. The unknown may now begin to look scary and and not at all exciting, so we get stuck. We may feel that we can't really turn back but, were not yet ready to step forward into uncertainty.

So we stay put.

Jim Carrey: "If you aren't in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret."

Erich Fromm: "The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."

 

Amazing as it may seem, the good news is that uncertainty offers the possibility for hope.

What if we were to replace our expectations with plans? What we plan to do, is an action we have control over since we are the architects of those. We can plan to go to the beach, we can plan to apply for a job, we can plan to take a vacation, we can plan for our children to go to College, and so on. We can't know if this will really eventuate in the future but we can remain positive about the possibilities, and their potential outcomes, and follow our plans.

Uncertainty may well prove to be the very fertile "soil" in which we can plant our dreams, our hopes, our faith. Before a painting becomes a masterpiece, it is a blank canvas full of uncertainties but also a blank canvas teeming with possibilities and discoveries. Before a dream becomes an eventuality, it begins as an uncertainty.
Tony Schwartz: "Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose "up" sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow."

Each time we make our way through a "gate" of uncertainty, we discover new things about ourselves, the world we live in and share with others, and although some discoveries may be difficult, "Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity, the only security".(John Allen Paulos)