UNCERTAINTY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY

~ Dr. Savita Mohan, Director-Greater Noida Institute of Technology
(MBA Institute) Greater Noida

Even when you think you’ve curled into a cozy cocoon of predictability, anything could change in a heartbeat.

The only constant in life is that it will involve change, and try as you may to control the future, sometimes all you can do is trust that whatever happens, you can adapt and make the best of it.

When you form expectations, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. You can guide your tomorrow, but you can’t control the exact outcome. If you expect the worst, you’ll probably feel too negative and closed-minded to notice and seize opportunities. If you expect the best, you’ll create a vision that’s hard to live up to.

Instead of expecting the future to give you something specific, focus on what you’ll do to create what you want to experience.

We should prepare for different possibilities. The most difficult part of uncertainty is the inability to plan and feel in control. Until you know where you are going to live, you can’t plan what neighborhood you’d like to live in, where you’ll practice yoga, or what events you’ll attend to meet people. But you can plan for the possibilities.

It isn’t the uncertainty that bothers you; it’s your tendency to get lost in your feelings about it.

Okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration. The point is that speculation leads to feelings, which can lead to more speculation and then more feelings. It helps you to stop the cycle by recognizing the feeling—in that case, fear—and the reminding yourself: you can’t possibly predict the future, but you can help create it by fostering positive feelings about the possibilities.

We should get confident about our coping and adapting skills. This isn’t the same as “expect the worst.” It’s more about assuring yourself that you can handle any difficulty that might come.

If you’re dealing with uncertainty, you probably have stress in your body, even if it’s not at the forefront of your thoughts in this exact moment. Over time, that body stress affects blood pressure, blood sugar, muscle tension, cholesterol level, breathing rate, and every organ in your body.

We should focus on what we can control. Oftentimes, we overlook the little things we can do to make life easier while obsessing about the big things we can’t do.

We should practice mindfulness. When you obsess about a tomorrow you can’t control, you’re too busy judging what hasn’t happened yet to fully experience what’s happening right now. Instead of noticing and appreciating the beauty in the moment, you get trapped in a fear-driven thought cycle about the potential for discomfort down the line.

While meditation is the best way to become more mindful, it isn’t the only approach. Sometimes it helps to take an inventory of what’s good in today. So you can’t yet plan for tomorrow that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. That means you can spend today doing other things, like writing, reading, relaxing in the sun, and connecting with people you love.

If ever you think you’ve created a controllable, predictable life for yourself, you can rest assured that’s an illusion. Nothing stays the same forever.

The uncertainty can keep you up at night, obsessing over ways to protect yourself from anything that might go wrong. Or it can motivate you to practice acceptance, live in the moment, and embrace the adventure of living.

What’s coming tomorrow might not be easy or it might fulfill you in ways you didn’t know to imagine. What’s certain is that it will come and when it gets here, you’ll respond to it, learn from it, and move into another tomorrow full of endless possibilities.