Traditionally, I am NOT good at dealing with uncertainty. I really don't like not knowing what might happen next. But in the last few years, I've learnt to live with it a little more comfortably. This has been helped by changes in my life, most notably moving to another country with different ways of doing things and different perspectives and, alongside that, the choices I've made to pursue things because I believe in them and am inspired by them not because I am operating in a system of how things should be done. Has this been comfortable? Most of the time - no. But is has been exhilarating, and brought me much closer to living the kind of life that I want to live - that is led by passion and interest and knowing myself in the context of a world I can believe in.
I still have moments when I have no idea where I am going or why - but I am learning to enjoy the journey, and most importantly to make the journey mine, to belief in it and to enjoy it as it happens.
This morning I came across a summary of some of the ideas in a book called The Antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive on Maria Popova's Brainpickings. I haven't read the book, but in her outline of it, a couple of points resonated with me - mainly that our obsession with planning, goal-setting and control is actually inhibitive at times and that we really need to do is learn to be able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty and contradiction. As I mentioned already, where I currently live (Cambodia) this is something they are generally much better at than me. While it has driven me crazy sometimes, I have learnt to see the benefits of it.
Popova picks out from the book a citation of the work of psychologist Saras Sarasvathy, who studied the essential qualities that successful entrepreneurs share.
I still have moments when I have no idea where I am going or why - but I am learning to enjoy the journey, and most importantly to make the journey mine, to belief in it and to enjoy it as it happens.
This morning I came across a summary of some of the ideas in a book called The Antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive on Maria Popova's Brainpickings. I haven't read the book, but in her outline of it, a couple of points resonated with me - mainly that our obsession with planning, goal-setting and control is actually inhibitive at times and that we really need to do is learn to be able to sit with discomfort and uncertainty and contradiction. As I mentioned already, where I currently live (Cambodia) this is something they are generally much better at than me. While it has driven me crazy sometimes, I have learnt to see the benefits of it.
Popova picks out from the book a citation of the work of psychologist Saras Sarasvathy, who studied the essential qualities that successful entrepreneurs share.
The most valuable skill of a successful entrepreneur … isn’t ‘vision’ or ‘passion’ or a steadfast insistence on destroying every barrier between yourself and some prize you’re obsessed with. Rather, it’s the ability to adopt an unconventional approach to learning: an improvisational flexibility not merely about which route to take towards some predetermined objective, but also a willingness to change the destination itself. This is a flexibility that might be squelched by rigid focus on any one goal.
This is also something my journey into Mindfulness is teaching me. Sometimes, you just need to let go, middle-distance, stop trying to control, heighten your awareness to what actually is and the rest will follow, including creativity, peace, happiness and many of the other goals you may have been so actively pursuing.