This week I've been thinking about uncertainty a bit. Life for me has had a lot of uncertainty for a long time. I have often felt nervous and doubtful of my ability to do things and have been told I shouldn't feel that way, that I'm wrong, I have enough information to be certain. After trying for so long to change my feelings and be certain of things I'm not certain of, maybe I'm finally seeing (maybe I can just accept it once and for all in my life) that as much as I would like it to, I don't think my tendency to feel uncertain is going to change.
This uncertainty plays out in school, work, relationships. I'm never sure how it's going to go. So far it seems the only way for me to work with my uncertainty (and sometimes well placed uncertainty too) has been for me to accept it. I've studied for so many exams (um like all of them!) I've taken with the understanding that I just have to work really hard and it may or may not pay off but working really hard is the only hope that I have of passing and the best I can do for myself is to just keep trying until I get it. I haven't always done badly, which has actually made me feel even more weird for my feelings of uncertainty. Many people I know have not had to do this because they apparently don't feel the same uncertainty. I have to say I have often envied those people. It's funny because if I mention how I have to work with my uncertainty and do things with the the understanding that, "This may or may not pay off but I have to take this risk and just work hard anyway" some people cannot understand it or find it quite uncomfortable and feel the need to quickly add, "Oh but it will probably pay off" or "It will work" which I suppose is their feelings of certainty but that's definitely not how I feel. Some people just look at me kind of blankly if I mention taking that perspective towards an exam or interview you are nervous about as if to say, "Huh work hard and not know if it will pay off ? That sounds crazy and really sad, like the kind of thing for a person in a really awful situation to do. No no no I'm better off than that."
I've also tried denying my uncertainty, so many times. That does not work well at all for me, at all! The denial has mostly led me to avoid engaging in wise preparation, because every time I tried to prepare or work hard I would feel my fear and uncertainty of the outcome and try desperately to avoid feeling the uncertainty. Most times my only way to stay in denial and avoid the feeling would be to avoid working hard and avoiding preparation. I've left a few 'projects' till the night before or the metaphorical night before for that reason, just because I was trying so hard to avoid the feelings of uncertainty working on them brought up. It seems an incredibly silly thing to do in retrospect but I guess I didn't see how my efforts at denial were preventing me from working hard, to the point where it was almost like a muscle injury for an athlete who never wanted to use that muscle again until it was completely healed and didn't hurt anymore. Denial seems to effectively paralyze me. I'm not very good at it or perhaps it's just because I have so much emotion in general that denying it takes ALL my energy and focus and I have none left for anything else.
This topic of the necessity of taking risks and accepting uncertainty reminds me of something I learned from my best friend. She is always trying out new food places and actually she is just always trying out things in life in general, new people, new clubs and hobbies, new ideas, new possible solutions to problems. The sentiment that I get from this is that she's willing to take risks and also she isn't going to blame herself if things go less than well. She doesn't act as perfectionistic with herself as I do. My often held sentiment of, "I have to know for certain that this is going to work in order to try it. I need to live my life perfectly." Conversely she has a certain amount of acceptance of herself getting things wrong. She doesn't have to know that it's going to turn out right before hand in order to try things and she doesn't have to know that she's doing "the right" thing (not in the sense of morally right, but in the sense of most effective) in order to try things out.
I've been wondering if I can do this lately. I know I have sometimes done it with school and other things. I've said, "I don't know if I'm doing the right thing by doing this. I could be getting it quite wrong" and I've taken risks. I'd like to do this again. I think for a long time I have felt very very perfectionistic with myself (in particular after I failed at something) and pressured to get things right. I felt guilty about taking risks after this. Ironically my perfectionism has led me to avoid taking risks to a silly degree (the degree of doing almost nothing... and not investing in anything) because I have felt so pressured to get everything right and do everything perfectly. So I'm resolving (hopefully I can keep this resolution) that I can take risks, I'm the kind of person who can accept doing something and not knowing if it's going to pay off or not knowing if I'm doing the right thing. I don't always have to feel that I am getting it right. I can tolerate the uncertainty and sadness of knowing that I may very well be getting it wrong but I just have to work hard anyway.
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