Learning to befriend uncertainty
Remember the last film that left you in suspense? That feeling of holding your breath, or gasping when an event unfolds that you didn’t see coming. This is a sign of a great story — the entire situation unfolds in a way we didn’t expect. That’s powerful storytelling.
However, in our own lives, unexpected unfolding can send shivers of dread down our spine. I know I’ve lived much of my life trying to hold everything together; to conduct my life in such a way that I _know_ what is coming next. Hold tightly, plan, calculate. I’ve lived with this expectation that I know event A will lead to event B.
But that’s now how life is. That’s not how the Universe operates.
In the book “How to Live In a Chaotic Climate”, the authors write:
“One of the best things we can do to befriend uncertainty is to develop a relationship with it, to understand it not as a moral failure but as an intrinsic part of life.”
Ah, uncertainty. How could you be my friend? As someone who leans toward a controlling posture, uncertainty has often felt like an adversary or enemy.
I sometimes act as if I’m on a battlefield — in war, you’d want to reduce uncertainty in order to keep you and the people fighting alongside you safe.
But I’m not on a battlefield. I’m (thankfully) not in constant danger. As I reflect on my relationship with uncertainty, I do feel this hint of “Oh, Josh, that wouldn’t have happened if you planned better”. So I calculate, plan, and repeat.
My approach to life can be white-knuckled, a tense being moving through time, using a great amount of effort and energy to hold it all together.
That’s not how I want to live.
I want to live amidst the unfolding. Lead with a sense of trust and open-heartedness that says bring forth what you have for me today. There’s a lightness to this way of being. We allow for the goodness of life to seep through our hard-shelled exterior.
Changing our relationship with uncertainty is about coming to terms with not knowing how this leads to that.
There are areas of life where we can understand causation. For instance, if I floss and brush my teeth regularly, it’s likely I will get praised by my dentist and stave off fillings or tooth decay.
However, when we look at our life as a whole, with the comings and goings of other people, and the events happening in our community and around the globe, we don’t know how one things affects the other.
Perhaps we look at uncertainty with a curiosity, rather than suspicion. Maybe we can carry hope into the unfolding.
We can be so quick to label an event as good or bad. In the moment, our feelings guide us, but those feelings often miss how this moment fits into the greater whole of our lives.
In the seventh grade, I unexpectedly didn’t make the basketball team at my school. I was devastated. I remember my mom picking me up from school and I burst into tears as soon as I got into the car. My heart and hopes were shattered. I thought I would make the team. It felt like the end.
But it wasn’t the end. I ended up becoming the manager for the team, got to know the coach and players, and I tried out again in 8th grade and made the team.
Every moment that happens in our lives is part of a greater unfolding that is beyond our knowing. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
The next time an event happens in your life, whether painful or joyful, try to receive it with a heavy dose of neutrality. Feel your feelings, and let go of interpretation. We don’t know how a single event fits into the trajectory of our lives.
Seemingly “bad” events can end up being a catalyst for incredible growth and change. Seemingly “good” events can often be fleeting; junk food for our soul, rather than something nourishing that challenges us and builds our character.
May we learn to approach uncertainty with warm welcome rather than hand-to-hand combat. May we learn to welcome the unfolding that is happening every second of every day of our lives.