…I will not be limited to just one of the two alternatives offered in answer to the first NaBloPoMo writing prompt for March:
Thursday, March 1, 2012
How do you feel about uncertainty? Is it exciting or scary?
(Yes, I’m backtracking–this is the first day I’ve used the prompts.)
It’s either or both, depending on the context and my frame of mind when I look at it.
And more often than not, it’s a combination of the two on a sliding scale. Uncertainty means possibility–the possibility that things could go in any direction.
I had what felt like an epiphany a bit over a decade ago: there is an inverse relationship between worry and control. The less control I have over a situation, measured against the amount of control I think I want over it–or feel I should have over it–the more worry it can cause me. I’ve done a lot of work on my need for control during the years since I realized that…and I worry less than I used to.
If I’m going to try to be less of a controller (except when it’s appropriate to my job title, that is–as I said, context makes a difference) and, correspondingly, less of a worrier, I need to be more tolerant of uncertainty. And I think–most of the time–I’ve made some real progress there. I still plan and prepare; I still want to control what I can. But I’m better about recognizing what I can’t control, and letting it take care of itself (or actually leaving it to someone else). It’s kind of nice to worry less, honestly.
Ten years ago, I was in the most uncertain place ever I’ve been in–just divorced, and on the verge of a cross-country move and living on my own for the first time in my life (I was married at nineteen, divorced at thirty-eight…and married again at forty-one, but that’s another story entirely). It was scary…and exciting. I hadn’t chosen all of it, but I’d made some decisions about some of it, and almost anything could have come of it.
If the only constant in life is change, I’m pretty certain the only certainty is uncertainty. I’ll keep working on being less scared of it, and more excited by it. Anything is possible.
