The Dance With Uncertainty

First published on January 10, 2018

The dance we each do with uncertainty is the scourge of creativity, of adventure and of living the unlived lives within us.

It holds us back.

It holds us up. 

It holds us in. 

It goes something like this: 

Something is happening with an uncertain outcome. Maybe it's a job move. Or deciding whether to share your writing with your friend or family. Perhaps it's deciding whether to travel to a country you haven't been to before. Or deciding whether to go on the same holiday you've been on the past five years, or to choose something new.

And really, that is where it always hits us. Do I do what I've always done, or do I do something new? 

Now there's no problem doing what we've always done. It's what makes the world go round. Imagine if every day you tried to travel to work in a new way every day. In the end it would take hours, cost £££s and... Be a bit pointless.

But if you don't do something new because of uncertainty, then that's different. Take a moment. Pause. Check that. 

Because uncertainty is scary. And because of our wiring - whether it's evolutionary or programmed into us by fearful education systems or concerned parents - it's almost always in the form of 'It might not work'. It might not work. It might go wrong. And if it doesn't work, if it goes wrong... Then disaster. Embarrassment, loneliness, abandonment, death. (Or at least that's the pattern that my thoughts mostly follow, if I keep digging.)

But we are brave people. I am brave. You are brave. Sometimes, we face uncertainty. We look 'It might not work' in the eye and we do it anyway. Because we're brave. Because we're bloody minded. Because, 'It might work.'

And then? Is it over? 

Well, some of it is over. Confidence is a result of our experience. Once we have left one job it's easier to leave the next. Once we have posted one article it's easier to post the next.

But it's not all over. Because there's still uncertainty next time. If we're lucky, maybe we transcend and include the old uncertainty - we truly learn that if someone doesn't like our writing, we won't end up in abandonment and death. And we learn that if someone does like our writing, we actually move further away from abandonment and death (this is me again). Then, it's only new uncertainty that is there to hold us back. If we're unlucky, then we don't transcend and include this time. And the next article, the next date, the next decision seems as wrapped in uncertainty as this one. And so we dance the dance again.

But I want to tell you that either way, it's never the same dance. You are always carrying with you the experience of your success and your failure. You are always more certain, next time, even on those rare occurrences when you are only more certain of the uncertainty. So what I am asking of you, what we are all asking of you, is to dance again. 

Be brave. Be bloody minded. Believe: it might work. And dance the dance again.