The Constantly Uncertain Life

A wise man used to say, "The future is never certain..." He's right, but the more right sentence would be, "The future is never certain, neither is the present..." Life is filled with uncertainty and for most people, it gives them something major to worry about. They would worry if the there'd be an accident if traveling at night, or that something is wrong with the car, or that they might not wake up early to catch the flight, or that the flight might be canceled, or even if there'd be something wrong with the plane that might make it crash down, or their lecturer might hate their assignment, or the soft copy of the file might lose due to a crashed computer, or bla bla bla bla.....

One thing though, these worries are legitimate. What they worry about could happen and is a possibility. But you see, when we talk about this, we basically talk about two types of people: The ones who worry too much, and the ones who couldn't care less. Oh wait, how about the people who care but they don't worry too much? Well, speaking from my personal experience, this kind of people rarely exist so they don't really make the third type. And I'm basically the first type. Which leads me to this entry after all. The people in my life either need to cool down and have a little faith, or man up and have a little courage. But the how part can be tricky.

Leahy (2008) has some suggestions for the first type of people. He first asks the worriers if there are anyone in the world who actually live this life in certainty. And no, there's no such person. Every single individual in the world, successful or not, is uncertain about the present and the future. But rather than worrying about the uncertain, he invites us to focus on the issues that we can work on, that has real solutions. He also states that uncertainty has its own advantages. A lot of times too when we are surprised by the occurrence of pleasant things in our lives, and when they are uncertain in the first place, don't they make us happier? Doesn't getting an unexpected bonus makes you happier than the regular salary every month? Even if the amount of the bonus is smaller than the salary? So, bottom line is, enjoy uncertainty, because a lot of times they can turn out to be the pleasant ones.

For more information you can visit Leahy's blog in Psychology Today. It's informative and practical to read.