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When I Surrender to Uncertainty, Something Cool Happens
I start flowing with it.
If my anxiety is a windmill, then uncertainty is the wind. Nothing gets me spun up and stressed out like obsessing over the future.
For a long time I thought that when I gazed into the uncertainty of the future, this is what caused my stress, but I was wrong.
It turns out that uncertainty itself isn’t the problem. It’s my resistance to it that causes all the stress.
Fear of not knowing
When I look into the future, obviously I can’t tell what is going to happen, so I end up creating stories to fill that void. But why do the stories form? Why is it bad that I don’t know what will happen?
I guess it’s the same reason anyone would do this. It’s because uncertainty is threatening. I mean, the only thing worse than knowing something bad will happen, is not knowing what will happen at all.
It’s that “not knowing” that has me creating stories and predicting outcomes for the future. I do this so I feel like I can get a foothold on the next moment, but I end up tripping myself instead.
This habit rips me from the present moment and drops me into an illusion, where all that exists are my stories about the future.
