Recognizing and accepting the limited control one has over life can be challenging, and to even say that is a massive understatement.
There are countless forces influencing any and all outcomes, and in the grand scheme of life, one’s input might feel insignificant. No one can know for certain how things will turn out, what will happen next, or even if they’ll wake up tomorrow. Very few things in life are certain, and I feel like this can be extremely hard to accept at times. But, while accepting life’s natural uncertainty may sound helpless and pessimistic, it can actually serve as a tool that can bring peace of mind. Not knowing what will happen can be a good thing — the only thing that needs to change to transform uncertainty from foe to friend, is your mindset.
Learning the best ways to live life with a healthy mindset has been a lifelong journey for me. I struggled with an anxiety disorder and clinical depression, which led me to find tools in therapy that helped me overcome these obstacles. Though I now handle anxiety better than ever, there are still thoughts that can trigger it. I find overthinking to be a slippery slope that can take my mind to ugly places, and I’m sure this isn’t something that happens only to me. When tackling a problem or facing a hard situation, one’s mind can flood with worries and confusion — frantically searching for a solution or scrambling to predict the outcomes, either bracing for impact or trying to see the invisible. What do they think of the situation? How will they react? What will they do? What if what I’m doing isn’t right? What am I doing? These are all questions I am all too familiar with, and they have uncertainty written all over them.
Accepting the uncertainty of what lies beyond our control is, in my experience, liberating. When I understood this, I was able to redirect the energy used to calculate the answers to unanswerable questions and instead use it to find reassurance within. I understood that when a person thinks someone is conspiring against them, then the person thinking that is casting a judgement upon the other person. We can’t read minds, so there’s no way to confirm if that person is conspiring against oneself or not. One simply can’t know. The person could just as well be thinking something else entirely. I discovered that when similar thoughts entered my mind, I was not battling against the ill will of a given person toward me, but rather my own narrative in which that person conspires against me. Whatever they are up to, I cannot control, and I cannot know. What I can control, however, is what I choose to believe.
In a sense, I feel like uncertainty is both ever-present and invisible at the same time. Its presence is everywhere because there are countless things one can’t control or know, and yet it’s invisible precisely because we can’t know if what we think is happening is even a reality — it is all just a thought in our minds up until the point where it actually happens. Uncertainty lives in the future and away from us. Whatever awaits tomorrow is a mystery, and if you can prepare for it in some capacity, then why worry? Same goes for the opposite, if you can’t prepare for it, then there’s ultimately no point in worrying either. As for what surrounds you, that’s already out of your control entirely. What other people choose to think or do is their choice, but we’re all allowed to choose what to think or do. Thinking or acting on behalf of others without consent is unfair for both them and you. What is certain is what you do with that choice, that’s all there is to it.
Allow everything else that lies beyond you to flow; allow it to stay uncertain. Focus on what you can choose to control, and you’ll find that as long as you’re doing your part and seeking your own tranquility, whether it be by releasing, preparing, accepting, understanding, or something else, then uncertainty stops feeling like a threat and starts feeling like an open field of possibilities.
