Uncertainty As Freedom

Nobody likes uncertainty. It's uncomfortable, and vaguely threatening.

'What's going to happen!?' we all want to know.

And yet, even though it doesn't feel like it, isn't uncertainty a kind of freedom? Doesn't it reveal that there are multiple possibilities open to us? Isn't it beautiful that we have the freedom and capacity to choose our own paths?

So why does uncertainty oftentimes feel more like a cage, trapping us and hindering our forward momentum? We fear to take a risk because of uncertainty about the outcome. In many cases this is a good thing, as our wax wings can't take the heat. But frequently we are so afraid of the terrifying unknown, that we barely allow ourselves to look at the sky.

As Melville wrote in Moby Dick: "Ignorance is the parent of fear."

My days right now are steeped in the emotional upheaval that is the result of living in uncertainty. I'm impatient to know what's coming next. I want the illusion of security that comes with feeling certain about where one's life is heading. I want it now!

But when I stop to reflect, I realize how foolish it is to try to chain myself to the ground, just because the wide sky that has opened up overhead frightens me with it's vastness.

I realize, too, the hard (yet liberating) truth that it's no more than a pipe-dream; this notion that certainty exists at all in the world.