Tackling Uncertainty

I am sharing one of the key point out of Samarth today. Hope it helps you.

Humanity’s key challenge since a millennia has been “Uncertainty”. They have tried to overcome it, deal with it, ignore it, intellectualise it, believe` in it, worship it or even analyse it. With every single breath that we take, there is uncertainty whether the next one will come or not. We have tried every possible trick to manage uncertainty. In certain areas, we have succeeded too. We managed to make bridges over the rivers and waters, drill tunnels, forecast weather, manage climate indoors, create clothing that can protect us from elements, discover medicine amongst nature to manage certain impacts of elements over us, fly against the laws of gravity using the laws of physics, use friction to cause movement, in fact we use science to maximum use for this purpose.

In more complicated areas of human behaviour, we have tried to analyses past human behavioural data and use various pattern analysis models to forecast future behaviours. We have theorised multiple management and leadership theories, come up with processes, devised motivational models, proposed goal theories, game theories, propounded concepts like physical quotient, intelligence quotient, emotional quotient, emotional intelligence. We tried to venture into how mind works and came up with thinking methods. Even operated and opened up the brain to understand its working and neuroscience behind it. All of this to deal with uncertain human conduct and to attempt and manage their uncertainty and bring some element of predictability.

It is an amazing journey we humans have been on, winning at times and entirely losing battles and territories at times.

While, BIG research happens towards this end, humans have a need to constantly cope with uncertainty on a moment to moment basis. In order to go on with our lives, we need to cope with Uncertainty. Fear, anxiety, stress, domination, crisis, comparison, competitiveness, hoarding, doubts, manipulations, etc are the emotions that we produce to cope with this uncertainty. These are in effect a coping mechanism. The more we produce these, the more we cope and the more difficult uncertainty becomes to tackle. It is a vicious cycle.

Emotional Intelligence is a wonderful tool to deal with emotions, yet it is Emotional Consciousness that helps us understand these emotions at their roots and then use these towards our well being and evolution. First step towards becoming Emotionally Conscious is acceptance of the existential reality called Uncertainty. Instead of avoiding it or finding ways to deal with it, the moment we embrace it, accept it as an ongoing reality in our lives, explore it in its fullness, know it to be the most amazing part of our Life, we start seeing emotions within us effectively.

My personal life has revolved around such simple things. I haven’t read books or gone for fancy colleges, not because they are bad things, but simply because I was too busy understanding my “Self”. One of the big hinderances I noticed along my path of self understanding was the uncertainty. I found the nature of the world around me in a constant flux. It was changing constantly and I wasn’t changing with it as I needed to. This gave rise to all kinds of emotions that I mentioned above. In order to deal with uncertainty. I had to keep my body fit, I had to study, I had to eat well, I had to sleep well, I had to be smart in front of my friends, i had to play sports, and everything else. I found myself to be surviving all the time.

It is then I realised, that I was too busy surviving the uncertain nature of the world. Fortunately, I grew tired of survival pretty early in my Life. Unfortunately, I also noticed that the education systems and everything around me was preparing people to deal with uncertainty only, consequently making people excellent survivors.

Uncertainty is real. That is the charm of Life. This is the romance. Imagine if uncertainty was taken out of our lives, we would not find Life worth living. The fact tomorrow is uncertain means we have endless possibilities for it. As I accepted Uncertainty I stopped resisting it and decided to flow with Life. I learnt to embrace uncertainty, not as a psychological narrative, but as a realisation… a beautiful one.

Creating a 100 year Succession Plan becomes possible when we embrace this uncertainty and do not look at Life as a means to our personal survival. When it is no longer only about ourself.

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