Uncertainty is as much a part of life as breathing. Most of us fear uncertainty on some level. We may fear things like getting into a car accident on the way to the grocery store, losing our job that we love, finding out we didn’t get that promotion we sought, missing out on a fun vacation because of a lack of funds, having our car not start on an important meeting day.
You’re not alone if you’ve had these thoughts. But what makes us have these thoughts in the first place? Some experts might say it’s our intolerance of uncertainty that causes us to fear it.
The fear of uncertainty
Interestingly enough, many of us view uncertainty as a bad thing. We attribute a bad outcome to its presence. But what if that uncertainty is necessary for you to get to a new place, a better place? What if these uncertain situations create good outcomes in the end?
I don’t believe a lot of us think of it this way. And by not, we may very well be missing out on a beautiful broad scale view of our life.
In life anything can happen. On a very basic level, we all accept this. Why? Because it’s fact. Life is full of uncertainty. That’s the fact. We can’t escape it. Therefore, we have two choices. Accept it or resist it.
Resist and Persist
Of course by resisting anything, you actually cause it to persist. Why? Because your thoughts center on it, forcing it under the rug, into the corner, out of view. And we all know what happens when we center our thoughts on something, right? We bring it into our reality and give it control. And, we also breathe air into it. The result? We fuel its fire.
We resist the current state and thus end up focusing on what we don’t want instead of what we actually do want. So what’s the solution here? Well, instead of fighting the uncertainty, we can embrace it. We embrace what’s happening so we can focus on its lessons and possibilities.
So, how the hell do you do that?
Allow yourself to feel the pain associated with the uncertainty.
Firstly, don’t run from it. Secondly, don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. When you embrace the situation, you are no longer the victim of circumstance. You are the creator of a new state of being.
Be open to the lessons.
Accept that what is happening is happening. There’s always a lesson to learn from adversity and challenges. Facing them is how we grow and become stronger. Often the pain we feel when faced with an uncertain situation stems from our thinking that this shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
No one deserves trauma, illness, or heartbreak. It sucks when it happens. It’s scary. It feels like a curse, or an undeserved punishment. That point is obvious, and unmistakably true. But here’s another truth, they happen. And when they do, we need to deal with them. To question why things happen, is a waste. They simply happen, unfortunately. They touch every single living being on this planet in some capacity.
The more beneficial question to ask is what can be learned from all of this. Because when we place ourselves in the seeking of knowledge position, we not only help ourselves to rise above the pain, but we help others as well. And that’s really what living a life of purpose is all about, right?
