The Not Knowing

Sometimes, we know exactly what we want to be doing. And sometimes we don’t.

Life offers us plenty of chances to leap into the abyss, not knowing what we’re going to find after our feet leave the ground.

We like certainty. Some of us like to calculate probabilities.

We often feel uneasy with uncertainty. The Not Knowing can eat away at us. But only if we let it.

According to John Huston Finley, “Maturity is the capacity to endure uncertainty.” We can learn to enjoy the Not Knowing. We can get curious about what is possible. We can find ways to play in the Not Knowing.

Many people talk about the value of “living in the moment”. I think of this as being open to possibilities that are not easy to predict ahead of time. Because we don’t know when we’re each going to die, we can be grateful for each moment we are alive.

There is a sense of possibility in the Not Knowing. Anything could happen. Instead of dwelling on what bad things could happen, we can look forward to the good things that may arise.

We can try to control as much as we can in our lives. We can “find our purpose”, and we can map out our goals. But the Not Knowing is always there. We can’t control everything, and we would not want to even if we could.

Instead, we can learn to appreciate the surprises that life gives us.

We can embrace the joy of Not Knowing!