By Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP, FRCP
Why are we so upset by uncertainty? You might be surprised that I’d even ask the question, given the uncertain times we live in. But I imagine you’d be even more surprised to find that uncertainty is the source of an enormous power that most people never tap into.
Instead of using this power of uncertainty, we run away from it. In an effort to replace uncertainty with its opposite, we sacrifice a precious aspect of our self. The English writer Aldous Huxley called it whole mind. Each of us as a birthright were given whole mind, he declares, but we spend our lives squeezing the mind through a reducing valve, as Huxley calls it. If you watch yourself closely, you will see how effectively you’re applying the reducing valve every day. You do this through habit, fixed beliefs, a whole list of likes and dislikes, and all kinds of experiences you deny yourself through caution, fear, and routine.
Why do we spend our lives repeating some version of “I like this” and “I don’t like that”? Why are we prey to habits we can’t seem to change or give up? Why do we settle for so much boring routine? Because we bought into the notion that reality needs to be reduced to a manageable size.
Uncertainty enters the picture because it has become the thing we most want to avoid. We fear unforeseen consequences without actually preventing them or making peace with them. What is the evening news but blasts of anxiety-provoking accidents, catastrophes, and things generally going out of control? It hardly seems possible that uncertainty contains hidden power we’d want to tap into. But as soon as you stop relying on the reducing valve, your awareness starts to expand. This paves the way for “Aha” moments, when you see that without uncertainty there would be no creativity, discovery, curiosity, or newness. Uncertainty is the place where discovery, beauty, joy, and spontaneity comes from. It is the infinite source of possibilities within your awareness.
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