18th March , 2014

In life you must be okay with uncertainty

Life is a long journey we all must take and from a young age we are taught to be prepared for the big wide wild. Most parents, schools and educators teach us to find a career path; a steady one, one that makes a decent wage where you don't have to worry once you're on the career ladder. This sort of thought process seems to spread like a virus into many other parts of lives; relationships, friendships, location.People are okay with being comfortable. But when did being comfortable ever allow someone to do something amazing?

One thing I've definitely learnt from travelling is to be okay with that uncertainty. Yes you need to prepare for the worst, but you also need to push for the best. And that means risk. Risk is a part of life, but why worry about something you can't control. Once you've made that decision, don't worry about the things you can't control. It's a waste of time. Most things we do these days, the cost of failing isn't fatal, the cost of failing is not greater than the risk we take. If we fail we can just pick ourselves up and move on and we can't always win so you better be okay with that uncertainty and the inevitability of failing.

This sense of anxiety and worry only hampers us from pushing forward, making the most of the decisions we make and taking calculated risks where you can move forward and create new opportunities. You should do this instead of spending time worrying about something that even if you prepare for, isn't completely in your control.

** "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. **

- Steve Jobs This quote by Steve Jobs is an idea what we all should all be thinking about, everyday of our lives. Rather than spending our lives worrying about losing what we already have. Opportunities, jobs and companionship will come and go and there's sometimes nothing we can do to change that. The important thing is the process, what we learnt from these relationships, opportunities and situations. You must enjoy the process or you risk making even your good opportunities a waste of time. Starting about if what you're doing right now is not what you want to do. If it isn't the case for too many days in a row, work out how you're going to move forward in another direction. Life is all about these little calculated risks, and it's always going to be uncertain, so we need to be okay with failing. Instead of getting down when it didn't go your way you need to have a mental procedure in place to move past it and learn from the mistakes you have made in a past.

 

I always say to myself, any experience I've had, even if it's a failure or just a flat out bad experience hasn't been a waste of time. From mistakes I can learn how I can do things right and from bad experiences I can know for sure that is something I need to avoid in future.

 

The importance of being okay with uncertainty is about avoiding what kind of person you becoming if you're scared of uncertainty. If you're scared of uncertainty, you become a very boring, safe person. Someone that always wants something stable, steady and 'just okay'. Someone who is okay with being mediocre. And that my friends is what scares me the most. Mediocrity.