Are you addicted to certainty? Do you need to know or predict what will happen next? Does this addiction often leave you feeling anxious and fearful?
Allison Carmen, author of The Gift of Maybe: Finding Hope and Possibility in Uncertain Times, inspires us to embrace the concept of “maybe” in order to dramatically improve our outlook on life, reduce stress and worry, and open the doors to hope and possibility.
Allison discusses why we should incorporate maybe into our lives.
On why we are addicted to certainty:
The great philosopher Jiddhu Krishnamurti who, when sharing his secret to happiness, said, "Do you want to know what my secret is? I don't mind what happens." It is simple to understand why this state of mind leads to freedom and happiness: if we don't mind what happens next in our lives, we have no reason to be stressed and worried today. Although not minding is a ticket to emotional freedom, most of us cannot help but care about what will happen next in our lives. We care about keeping our jobs, having enough money, our children being healthy, being in good relationships, our spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend not breaking up with us, and a slew of other crucial outcomes. We want to make sure that the things we want to happen actually do happen — and that is precisely where our addiction to certainty begins. Yet, we can't control everything, and life is filled with twists and turns; sometimes our efforts to secure certainty leave us far from the life that we desire. Do we mind? Absolutely.
“Embracing maybe gives us the view where so much more is possible.
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On despair and our need for certainty:
Despair is merely another form of certainty, making us believe that the past and this moment guarantee a certain future. Many of us don't realize that our despair often sinks us much more than the events that happen to us. A loose grip on hope does the opposite. You see things for what they are, but you still get to believe in the potential of the unknown, the miracles, and the good things that you can never predict. Yogi Berra once said, "The future ain't what it used to be." At first glance, the quote makes you laugh. At second glance, we realize many of us actually feel this way, and it is our potential path to live in despair.
On breaking the addiction:
I wish I could say I had this moment and never yearned for certainty again, but that wouldn't be true. However, I had a decisive "Aha" moment, which introduced me to the idea of maybe. I remember feeling a profound shift within, but it took me a while to embrace maybe as my life philosophy. As the years went by, it has been my lifesaver and perspective for holding onto hope without attaching to an outcome being one way or another. We can lose jobs, people break our hearts, and businesses go under, but the next moment always has the potential for something new. Eventually, a new path is created for us, and sometimes it truly is better than we can imagine. Other times it is just enough to squeeze some new experiences out of the moment or create a life still worth living. In my opinion, the best we can do to shift our relationship with uncertainty is to embrace the maybe.
On bad things happening:
Things might not work out to our liking. You can refer to it as the maybe not, but that is just one piece of uncertainty. The unknown also offers another side of maybe. Maybe what is happening is good. Maybe we can accept what is happening and still be OK, or maybe things can get better. This way of thinking gives us the sliver of hope that propels us to get out of bed in the morning. Enough hope to create new business even when the economy is uncertain, begin new relationships even when we are heartbroken, and work towards a better future for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
On the uncertainty of life today:
I find these days more challenging at times but in no way more uncertain. Many of us are unaware that the uncertainty we run away from rules our lives whether we like it or not. The job we take, the person we marry, or the business we start are all measured in some way with our relationship with the unknown. How much risk can we tolerate? How many things are we "willing not to know" in our relationship? How close to becoming broke are you willing to go to make your dreams come true? It has always been a game of surrender and letting go, but because most days look the same, we don't always notice the constant change of life. We fail to see all the things that must come together every day to make it look the same and all the subtle shifts that create change even when we can't see it in the moment. If we can just remember life is filled with potential because the unknown exists, we can live differently. If you can shift to this perspective — that life is always offering you something new — you will be more likely to live in wonder, creativity, and innovation. When we recognize maybe, each moment offers us more than our greatest fear. And even if our fears still exist, embracing maybe gives us the view where so much more is possible.