Uncertainty and Control
Choosing to surf the storm
Is it just me, or does it seem like there is so much uncertainty in the world today?
Geopolitical atrocities and wars
Economic upheaval
The ongoing climate crisis
The dawning of a new age of AI
And so many more examples
No one has any degree of certainty how things will go from one day to the next, let alone how things will all work out in the long run.
It makes perfect sense that there seems to be a rise in polarization as well. On so many different issues, we’re continually asked some variation of “are you with us, or against us?”
There’s no longer any room for nuance. The middle-ground is said to be for cowards and weaklings, and compromise = treason.
In a world of uncertainty, picking a side and planting a flag can allow, even if it’s just for a brief moment, the self-delusion of certainty.
But there’s another way.
It’s truly “the road less traveled”, which means you may be lonely if you take it. But the payoff is you’ll be freeing yourself from the utterly exhausting work and drama around trying to continually assert dominance and maintain certainty.
The other way, is to acknowledge the uncertainty and stop fighting against it. To attempt to surf the waves of the storm.
I’m not saying we give up and don’t fight for better outcomes, but rather that we stop fighting against the reality of what is right in front of us. I try to remind myself of Byron Katie’s great line: “The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.”
There are a lot of things in the world that I wish were different right now, but they’re not. So, just for today, I’m going to focus only on the things that are 100% within my control.
(As a fun aside: In the spirit of surfing the storm, I used an AI image generator for the above photo. It’s pretty good, until you notice that the surfer doesn’t seem to have a head…and I’m not even sure those are arms. Talk about uncertainty! 😃)