The Certainty Trap - Avoid It To Have More Fun

No AHA moments, uncertainty is the most normal, using "not knowing" as a source of inspiration and delight.

May 16, 2021

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Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark - Dan Millman

One of the things that I've found myself talking to people about more is certainty and how it is a trap. It's funny but somewhere in life we get this idea that there will be moments in time when we just "know".

It's supposed to be this big moment where we will finally get the certainty we have been craving. This can show up in a bunch of different ways - whether it’s over who will be our romantic partner, what will give us a feeling of purpose, what vocation will inspire us to be at our best, and a million other sub-bullets underneath those big broader categories.

I personally think those moments are rare and this idea of certainty or knowing is a trap.

I Think There Is Often No AHA Moments

All of the best experiences in my life have never boiled down to one moment where I just "knew". For example, my relationship with Isabella is the product of a million moments that have already passed by and millions more that we will have in the future.

There Is A Lot Of Outside Pressure To “Know” - Maybe this is an obvious idea, but I think, particularly in a culture, there is a focus on having answers. I think we are often conditioned, from our schooling and certain social expectations, to drive towards certainty or to risk looking foolish. For example, knowing where to go to college, or who you want to marry, or what you want to do professionally, or where you want to live, or when you plan on having a family, and so on and so forth.

Saying I Don’t Know Is Not Always Valued - Saying I don't know, I've found, is uncommon and not necessarily encouraged in our culture. In my opinion, the fixation that sometimes exists with being certain is a trap and a losing game.

I’ve Been Asked “When/How Did You Know” Questions A Bunch

A personal example is I have been asked this question hundreds of times - "When did you know Isa was the person you wanted to marry". The answer is I never "knew".

I've been asked a million times about some of the work I've done, "how did you guys know you should do it" or "how did you know it was going to work?." We didn't. Lots of close calls along the way as well.

I've been asked "how did you know you wanted to go to UVA" or how did you "know working remotely/traveling", etc., etc.

Nothing Has Really Ever Been Certain For Me, Especially The Best Stuff

The reality for me, and it's taking me a while to realize this, is anything that has been worthwhile in my life has never felt certain. There has never been a single defining moment where I knew what the outcome or path would look like.

And frankly, that's why it has been fun.

There Is Nothing Wrong With Us If We Don't Know

Uncertainty is a very good thing: it's the beginning of an investigation, and the investigation should never end - Tim Crouch

The reason I think this is an important topic is often times I hear people getting disheartened that they don't feel like they're on a "clear path" or are any closer to finding a partner.

I’m Not Saying Don’t Want Stuff - I want to clarify that I think wanting something is natural. When I say get comfortable with uncertainty I don’t mean to imply that we should not set goals or crave things like finding a partner, or finding things that engage us, or going after something that we really want.

I’m Suggesting That Getting Comfortable With Never Knowing Might Be Useful - What I am saying is you will likely never know if that partner is the "right" partner or if your relationship will last forever. You will likely never know whether you are doing the "right" kind of work or if you will want to do that kind of work forever. You will likely never know with certainty answers to the question of "is this what I should be doing, will this last forever, am I on the right path?".

I Think The Very Act of Wanting To Know Makes Us Feel Bad - The very act of wanting to have certainty around any of these topics, I think, will usually leave us anxious and feeling worse off most of the time. The reason being is that every single moment where you "don't know" you're going to feel pretty bad because you think you "should know" by now.

As a result, I think it's perfectly normal to not know. In fact, I think it's one of the most normal things in the world.

Using Not Knowing As A Source of Delight

One of the few constants in life is change and when we get attached to being certain I think we make life less wonderful.

In sixty-plus year of living, the way has never opened in front of me.’ She paused, and I started sinking into despair. Was this wise woman telling me that the Quaker concept of guidance was a hoax? Then she spoke again, this time with a grin: ‘But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that’s had the same guiding effect.’ - Quaker Woman

Open Doors, Wherever They Might Go, To Learn More About Yourself

I love this quote because it offers a perspective on not knowing that I think is extremely useful. Instead of looking at every life event or opportunity as "is this the answer?", we can choose to look at it as another door we are opening, another rock we are looking under, another rabbit hole we are going down.

The effect of continuing to explore different paths (lots of metaphors today) is that we continue to learn more about ourselves. This includes what we like, what we don't like, what engages us, what we definitively don't enjoy doing, who we enjoy being around, the kind of thinking that turns us off, and a million other things that we have the opportunity to figure out.

Finding Out What Makes You Tick Can Be A Source of Adventure

Instead of caring about knowing, for me personally, taking pleasure in figuring out whether something will be interesting, bring me joy, or engage me makes almost any life experience fun or at the very least useful.

What if you spent a life pursuing the discovery of who you were vs. meeting some goal of who you wanted to be?

Most of Us Won’t Become Buddhists, Reframing My Approach Has Been Useful

I know this may seem like semantics but for most of us that won't become Buddhist monks, we'll spend a lot of time in our own heads thinking.

If we're going to be alone with those thoughts 99% of the time why not frame things in a light that serves us and brings us joy as opposed to in a light that brings on more anxiety and fear.

Adventure lies in uncertainty and I think it offers a great path to learn more about ourselves.

Until next time,

Alvaro