It seems lately, the only thing that we know for certain is that everything is uncertain!
However, is uncertainty such a bad thing?
There is an age-old tale about a king, this king caught wind of the existence of a magical ring - He was told that whenever someone gazed upon this ring, it had the power to make sad people happy and happy people sad. The king quickly decided that he wanted possession of this ring and so he charged one of his ministers to find it. The minister searched unsuccessfully for months and was just before abandoning his efforts when he came across a wise jeweler living in a remote area of the kingdom. This jeweler told the minister that he did not have the ring, but that he could make him one! Taking a plain gold band, he engraved 4 words into it. When the ring was delivered, the king recognized the simple wisdom that it contained - engraved in the band were the words "This Too Shall Pass."
This tale reminds us that we must accept the inevitability of change. Change is the only thing in this lifetime that we have consistently been guaranteed, yet it is the single thing that scares us most. WHY?! ... We are afraid of the unknown and the unpredictable.
Our life experience teaches us that our world operates through a linear pattern of "cause and effect." (predictability) It is this relationship between cause and effect that lays the framework of certainty in our life - Our logical brain reassures us: Every time X happens, I can expect Y as a result. Now, where this gets a bit delusional is when we have an experience in life that feels repetitious or familiar - we begin to believe that life offers us certainty because our mind establishes a pattern between two completely different moments that may look and feel somewhat familiar. Essentially, we superimpose the past onto our present or future in an attempt to eliminate uncertainty.
So let's imagine letting go of everything in our life that is familiar, everything that we know to be "true." Let go of your life experiences - both good and bad. Let go of your name. Let go of your career. Let go of your accomplishments and your achievements. Let go of your successes and your failures. Let go of all of the people that you surround yourself with. (I'm serious, try it.)
As we begin to try to imagine this, it is inevitable, we begin to hesitate. We do not want to let go of everything that we have worked so hard to achieve and we certainly do not want to let go of the people in our life that we love most! As human beings, we hold on tightly to what is familiar and we establish comfort in the patterns of belief born from our life experiences - we call these patterns of belief "the known." When we ask ourselves to let go of everything that we know, we are ultimately challenging our unique patterns of belief which are much harder to erase because they are directly correlated to all of the efforts of our life... and so we become hesitant; We are fearful that the cumulation of our actions have been without meaning. But what if these patterns of belief were rooted in delusion, would we hold on so tightly and would we be so afraid to let them go?
Let's take this example: One of the first delusional beliefs that our life experience attempts to teach us is that tomorrow exists. The sun has gone down and the sun has come back up enough times that, today, we plan, we count on, and deep down we believe that tomorrow or next week, even next year, will certainly come. The truth is, tomorrow is not guaranteed... we have only convinced ourselves that life will behave as we have always known it to.
Every moment of this lifetime is unique and every moment is a new experience that we cannot predict - it is uncertain. We experience much more uncertainty in life than we do certainty and that is one thing that won't change. The "unknown" can feel ungrounding and nerve-racking at times, but it is the unknown that gives rise to opportunity! It is in the unknown that we have the opportunity to grow and to evolve. Kick off your shoes, sit back and utilize uncertainty to change direction, to create something new, or to be better than you were before.
Uncertainty is an essential ingredient to life and I challenge you to embrace it!