We don't know

Today I woke up and I was thinking, "I don't know how my life is supposed to go. I can't predict it and maybe I shouldn't try." The thing is that although I really want to know and I really want to think I know I have to face the fact that I don't. I am aware that other people try to predict their lives... and a lot of people who do this granted, fail miserably. I'm thinking of the stories I've heard of 90% of science majors entering university confident that they will get into medical school and this doesn't happen for most. Maybe I'm wise in my hesitancy and sense of not knowing. I never thought about it like this before. I started thinking this because I was thinking about how to deal with the large amount of anger I've been feeling at some things not going the way I wanted.

The thing is over the past few years while I felt I was failing at living my life right,  the idea has been occurring to me that even of the people who are succeeding and doing really well, no one really knows what the best way to live your life is. There are so infinitely many things you can do and it's just anyone's guess which is the best. I was really resisting this idea because... I guess I was so used to thinking in my box, I didn't want to open my mind more.

Today thinking about the idea that, "I don't know how my life is supposed to go" and sort letting go of expectations about that, I'm reminded of zen ideas. I was reading part of this "Zen of Alice (in wonderland)" book over this summer. I did not really get the book, I don't know if it was the author's wording or communication of his idea. I felt like he was trying to say that everything is good the way it is, that if someone dies in a car accident and you're unhappy about it, you should just radically readjust your reality in your head to see that it should be this way with the person dead and not cry over something that is the way it should be. I also went to this zen retreat this summer and I felt like participants were specifically pushed off balance but it felt like there was this intense focus on not feeling and not being upset. This could be my own bias. There was this sense of just don't be upset, stay calm no matter what and that didn't really reconcile with me. Thinking of it this idea of losing expectations again this morning I am thinking of it differently. I am thinking of it more like, "I'm not dictating what should happen, I'll just take what I get and then some things will be sad and some will be happy." There was not this idea of being "ok" with everything, there was more a sense of not claiming to understand everything or have everything figured out. I don't know if or how this might reconcile with the idea in the zen of Alice book.

What's funny is that it seems like a lot of the bright people I know have this sentiment, this sense of not knowing what things "should" be or how they "should" go. When something bad happens they don't seem to get that angry, rather it seems there is this idea that they're sad but they're accepting and they don't say, "It should have been like this." I guess there is a sense of openendedness and humility about things, a strong sense of the limitations of their knowledge. They quite don't radiate this sense that they "should" feel happy or sad about how this are going or that they should not feel happy or sad about how things are going either. I think this is wise, I think this is wisdom as far as I can see.

I guess I would have to say that it makes a big difference to me the tone of voice/facial expressions or even language with which people talk about these ideas. If the language or tone of voice of the speaker seems very driven and very certain that they know these ideas about uncertainty are right, that makes it very hard for me to believe those ideas, because it seems like they are contradicting themselves. If it is presented in a more openended way it comes across very differently.