“When you have the courage to trust in an unknown journey”
I’ve been trying to learn to dance with uncertainty lately - and it’s uncomfortable to say in the least.
Our mind does NOT like to rest with uncertainty. We need and demand answers constantly. Maybe you’ve felt it when grappling with the unknown - the body tenses, the mind becomes small and fixated and the heart becomes armored.
We have an expectation that life should look something like this:
But in reality, it looks more like this:
In fact, we dislike uncertainty so much that we would rather predict a negative outcome rather than sit with the unknown. It reminds me how our culture is vastly addicted to needing to know.
We need to know the data trends in order to better predict what to market.
We need to know what to say in front of others, so we don't look like a fool.
We need to know what we're doing so that others don't see us as a fraud.
We need to know.
But…What if we put value on the kinds of questions we asked, rather than the answers that we think we know?
What if we could make peace with all that was uncertain in our hearts by not demanding an answer immediately? What if we appreciated the questions so much that we learned to live our questions rather than needing to answer them?
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.” Rainer Maria Rilke beautifully captures the essence of what it means to live in uncertainty.
Perhaps uncertainty isn't something to be solved in my life. Perhaps it is my truest reality - that life will always be uncertain.
My recent prayer is to have the courage to trust an unknown journey.
To soften into the mystery of life and not demand answers all the time. To let myself live in the questions a little longer. And to just take it one step at a time.
This week's quote:
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way.
― Anne Lammott, Bird by Bird
PS: Replaced “writing a novel” with “life” and you have a perfect recipe for dealing with uncertainty