Uncertainty

What’s the problem with uncertainty? When we delve into the nature of everything, we always find a quality of uncertainty. Yet the ego — the strong sense of self that wants things solid and known — can’t quite buy the fact that things are uncertain. So, an onslaught of desperate attempts to keep things fixed and unchanged ensues.

Surprisingly, though, I don’t hear people talking about uncertainty, and I don’t see why. It’s our collective conundrum to fight it, and it’s in the oxygen we breathe. It’s in everything, every day.

From the perspective of mindfulness, the only problem with uncertainty is in how we relate to it. For me, I sometimes pretend it’s not there so that I don’t have to feel the discomfort of its presence. This of course doesn’t work. Sometimes I relax into it and embrace the unknown quality of being human, and I feel curious about the wonder of each moment. Other times, when the thing that I didn’t want to happen happens, I just feel pissed. My ego says, “Seriously, I thought I was in control and can make things certain.” Uncertainty is like the salt in the ocean. It’s within, around, under, to the sides of all of what we are. Fearing it shuts me down. Knowing its presence allows life — my life and yours — to unfold as it will. That’s for certain.