When there is only a week left for the exams, our mind loves to wander and dream more. Dream and desire especially of thoughts like “if only I knew a couple of questions that would be in the exam!”. Aside from casual regrets of not having studied before, these thoughts definitely creep in and we love to fantasize about them: “I wouldn’t have to study this hard and would easily get the best grade!”
At some point in our lives, we have dreamt of knowing the unknown.
To further understand the significance of uncertainty lets do a thought experiment. Suppose you tell a person that they would be locked for 7 days within their house and in return for doing so, they would receive a million bucks. They’d accept the terms happily and spend the next 7 days inside with ease. But if you tell the same person that they’d receive a million bucks if they stayed inside their house; the first question that person will ask you would be; “For how long?!”. The weight of uncertainty is so much more than that of those millions and billions of bucks!
Thus, we want to have certainty of the future in every act we do, the desire to know the outcome beforehand.
But would it be really worth it?
Okay, let’s imagine that you have a superpower of knowing the future. So now you know the questions that would be asked in the exam. Thus you’d prepare for only those few questions, perhaps perfectly and unsurprisingly excel in the exams. You’d earn the praise of your friends, close ones and the community. But when it is all done and when you would be alone with yourself, would you have the courage to look yourself in the mirror and be proud of yourself? Would you have a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for the rest of your life? Wouldn’t you be undermining the very reason you even decide to give this test?
On the first glance, it appears as if ‘uncertainty’ is a big bad devil we all have to repeatedly face. And there are various instances where this even seems to be evident. Say we are endowed with the knowledge, to who is going to be our spouse/love for life. So an argument in favour of this idea could be: “Since I already know whom I am going to marry and spend my life with, I would stop wasting my efforts and energy on the ‘wrong person’ and also never be heartbroken!”.
But does that ensure that the ‘right-person’ would get the right attention and affection that he/she deserves? How easily could one take it for granted saying: “Since we are anyways going to be together, why worry?”. Truth is, when most of us would already know the outcome, we would tend to have lesser gratitude for things we have and more arrogance accompanied with ignorance in our lives. For we know that most of us would probably do what the hare did in his race with the tortoise. The hare was always more capable of winning the race and perhaps he knew it very well. And that sense of surety led to the breeding of overconfidence in the hare.
“So, what, the hare didn’t know his destiny. It was just his overconfidence.”
Sure, it was his overconfidence, but wasn’t it this sense of surety (almost certainty in the hare’s mind at least) that hindered the hare from bringing out the best in him? Similarly, if you already knew your spouse, you’d not only take him/her for granted but also lose yourself in the cycle of time.
It is only because you don’t know, you try. You try to persuade and convince a person without having a hint of an idea for what lies ahead in the future. And while doing so, you bring out the best in you. You develop the skills you have, be it of communication or cooking. And in turn, the person at the receiving end gets the best he/she could. Yes, there’s always a chance of an unsuccessful outcome. But it is a part of the parcel. For every failure dishes out a plethora of lessons, provided one is ready to learn.
Every nuance of activity done in a seemingly failed cause is a SUCCESS. It’s the experience, the piety of thoughts & actions and the better version of you than yesterday. YOU ALWAYS GAIN FROM TRYING OUT IN THE SEEMINGLY DARK UNCERTAINTY!
Yet another truth is that because uncertainty is there, we are not lazy. It keeps us in check and in the present. Uncertainty makes us humble. It automatically cuts down on our arrogance and on the other hand, brings out the best one has to offer. Uncertainty demands you to be true to yourself and baptizes your soul to the purest forms of itself!
In the greater scheme of things, uncertainty is not even a ‘necessary evil’. It is an intricate part of life; a guru who is strict and unforgiving but only to bring meaning to life.
To embrace uncertainty as a gift of the many gifts of life could prove to be a healthy proposition for oneself as well as for the others.
A very thought provoking article. Really very nice.
Thank you so much for your comment!