OfPonderingWandering

Almost every fear can be traced back to the ‘Grand-daddy’ of them all, The Unknown. Be it fear of the darkness, future, or socializing. The essence of the unknown courses through each of these fears, choking us. But really, should we fear the unknown? 

My experience with the unknown.

For a long time, I was fearful of the future. I did not know what would happen! So, in an ill-informed move, I would control as many things as possible. I began to force the unknown to become known, essentially I tried to boil the ocean with a match. Ultimately burning myself out in the process. I would micromanage, optimize and overwork myself until I physically/mentally could not hold up anymore. Then, I would feel bad about relaxing! Can you guess what happened after I tried to boil the ocean?

I drowned. 

I drowned in anxiety. The Stoics talk a lot about maintaining the balance of the dichotomy of control. Which is essentially like a coin, with one side representing what we can control, and the other side representing what we cannot control. I went against what the Stoics said, and I tried to control what was uncontrollable. I attempted to control the future through making an incredibly rigid and micromanaged present. Did it work? No. A famous quote by Lao Tzu essentially says, ‘Death is rigid, life is soft’. Through freeing myself of this thought-behaviour pattern, I gained a very deep understanding of his quote. 

What does rigidity look like? For me, it was a rigid form of perfectionism. I would mainly do two things. Firstly, I would try to keep my blood sugar in range for as long as possible (I have Type One Diabetes). Secondly, I would try to keep my grades as high as possible. Now, this doesn’t seem too bad right? Correct, these are genuine goals that we can have in life, but the problem stems partially from the fact that I let these goals control me, for I was so fearful of the unknown, I needed goals that could make the unknown as predictable as possible. Through letting these goals control me, I would make unforgiving and rigid schedules to attempt to meet my goals. And the funny thing is, it’s normal for blood sugar to fluctuate throughout the day. So even though I tried to dam out uncertainty, it still leaked through into my life. Once more, flooding me with anxiety. The flooding of anxiety got to a point where it was clear that I had to do something to save myself. So, here are three main tips about transforming our view of uncertainty and the unknown. 

Let go 

One of the most transformative moments in my life was learning to surrender myself and control over to something greater (be it life, the flow of time, Nature, the universe, God). Only through surrendering my life over to the future, could I learn to control the things I could actually control. Essentially, sustaining a moderate dichotomy of control. 

We can view letting go as ultimately a form of resource reallocation. When we begin to let go, we can reallocate mental resources to the things that matter, such as the journey, instead of worrying about the destination. 

Letting go consists of a few steps. One: acknowledge and validate how you feel. For me, this was acknowledging that I focused too much on the future instead of the present, hence giving me incredible anxiety. Two: allow the emotions to do their thing. Emotions come and go, when we begin to let go, it is best if we let our emotions flow and go while non-judgmentally listening to them. As this allows us to both accept and let go of any emotion (positive or negative). Three: Forgive yourself. Perhaps one of the hardest steps to complete, as this step requires us to send compassion and forgiveness to ourselves regardless of what has happened. However, forgiveness is best practiced in the light of step Four: Present mindfulness. Letting go requires mindfulness. Be it awareness of how we feel, awareness of our healing journal, or awareness of the breath. Present mindfulness is an incredibly useful tool that allows us to start to shift our focus from the non-present to the present. To connect back to forgiveness, if we view the past as the necessary steps to permit the present. Mindfulness becomes a lot easier to perform. (I plan on writing a blog on mindfulness sometime!)

Through surrender and staying present, we can begin to slowly overcome our fear of the unknown. Yet, intertwined with letting go is the joy of ignorance. 

Joy of ignorance 

One of the best things we can do for ourselves is to practice non-attachment. The joy of ignorance is very much a facet of non-attachment. We genuinely do not know where life may take us, this is both terrifying and liberating. We are born ignorant of the future, we should celebrate this. We can allow life’s changes to surprise us, instead of debilitating us. Change and uncertainty are the bedrock of life, allowing us to transition to different points in our lives, and allowing us to surprise ourselves, we can find joy in this. Life will certainly take us on rides throughout careers, locations, and relationships, but isn’t this the whole point of life? To challenge our ignorance and learn? To find joy in the people we meet, and their absence which allows us to meet different people? Sure it is hard to find joy when we don’t know the bumps the path will have, or where it will end. But can’t we trust ourselves, or our character to succeed in the end? To find joy in ignorance is to truthfully say you trust your character to succeed in the end. Then, you can enjoy the mountain climb as you become yourself. They say, ‘Ignorance is bliss’.

As we begin to let go, and accept to live life to its fullest. We open ourselves up to truly learn from the unknown, and all it has to offer. 

Learning from the unknown 

Letting go of our control around uncertainty and what is unknown has one great benefit. When we truly admit that we know nothing about what will happen, we open ourselves up into a position much like Socrates’ famous quote, ‘I know that I know nothing.’ And this gives us great power to learn (lessons) from the unknown. For if we don’t know anything about the unknown, in turn, this allows us to learn anything from it. Most importantly, this knowledge is often in the form of self-knowledge. By accepting the unknown, and moving within uncertainty, we can learn a lot about who we are. For it is our inner light that must guide ourselves through the darkness. 

The unknown is scary and frightening. The need to control it is understandable and human, yet, we do not need to suffer in the face of uncertainty. Through finding joy in what is unknown/uncertain and letting go of our control, we open ourselves up to (inner) knowledge. When we find ourselves facing uncertainty, may we hear Seneca’s wise words, 

‘Is this the condition that I feared?’

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