Maria Shriver, in her Sunday Paper, says, “ Here we are. Sitting in the unknown. Standing in the uncertain”. I’m not very good at sitting, and I’m not very good at dealing with uncertainty, so it seems like the ultimate conundrum for me. Maybe you are struggling with this too. I’m an information person. My motto is knowledge is power---that’s not serving me right now. I’m listening to those who promote “getting back to work,” and I’m sympathetic to those that say, “stay at home.” I feel like a rotisserie chicken warming up on all sides! The risk is getting burned! The worst part is not knowing what is precisely right. When you come to think about it, nothing in life is all that certain except death and taxes, (says Ben Franklin). So I am trying to embrace the wisdom of uncertainty.
Have you considered that to be uncertain is a healthy state of mind? There is wisdom in uncertainty. Humans are on a constant path to know and understand everything. We lay awake at night, solving problems that have no answers. Our brains work overtime to decipher every issue we face. When the mind is in overdrive the heart races, the blood pressure rises, the stomach churns, and the breath is shallow and fast. Sounds like a recipe for illness, huh? We worry because we won’t tolerate uncertainty. What if we decided to embrace uncertainty, to allow the ambiguity to continue, to live in faith? How about giving up the struggle and sinking into the comfort of mystery and trust. The message is this: If worry helps you, by all means, keep on worrying. If worry makes you healthy, by all means, keep on worrying. If worry changes your circumstances, by all means, keep on worrying. But we know that worry does not improve anything. Let’s consider embracing the wisdom of uncertainty and watch our blood pressure go down!