Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jeff Munn
“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the
amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with.” ~Tony
Robbins
We spend a lot of time in life not
knowing.
There are a lot of things that we’re comfortable not knowing.
Not knowing a stranger’s name. Not knowing our credit card number
or a friend’s address. Not knowing the capital of Vermont.
We’re comfortable with these things because we know there are
answers. Even if we have to get on our smartphones for few minutes
to find them, we know these things are all facts that actually
exist.
But there are lots of other things that we really want to know,
like if our decision is going to
be the right one, or if a job is going to work out, or
if we’re about to be laid off.
What is the best use of my life? What is my mission?
These things are unanswerable. There are many things that we simply
can’t know.
And while we think it would be nice to know these things, to
know the future, I’m here to tell you it’s really not the case.
Even if we could know these things, we’re actually better off not
knowing them.
Last year, I took a new job in sales. It was a big change for
me. I’d been in consulting and legal practice the rest of my
career, and while part of my past work had been around growing
relationships and coming up with ideas for new projects, I’d never
taken a job where I was a “sales guy,” where I would be evaluated
solely on my “number.”
When I took the job, I was given a quota that, if I met it,
would mean a significant increase in my pay. I was also told that
I’d be groomed for greater responsibilities, that I was seen as a
likely future member of senior management.
The company has some cutting edge ways of looking at health care
expenses and we help millions of people live better, healthier
lives. It was a mission that I enthusiastically signed up for.
This is what has happened since:
The company has been through three major restructurings.
Several of my peers, including the two people who brought me in for
grooming, have either quit or been let go.
The market has dried up for our services, even as we were able
to prove their effectiveness with randomized controlled trials.
There have been virtually no new sales. This means that I have
taken a substantial pay cut and have had to dip into my savings to
meet my expenses.
The company has made almost no progress on new offerings, and
several current clients have left. There is some encouraging talk
of new partnerships and capabilities, but these will take months to
implement.
I sold nothing last year and am unlikely to sell much this year.
And the most enthusiastic advocates for my development within the
organization are gone.
Now the question is had I known all that, would I have
taken the job? And the answer is almost certainly no.
But that would have been a big mistake—because I’ve learned so
much.
I’ve learned a whole new industry.
I’ve broadened my relationships and deepened my
friendships.
I’ve learned to let go of what I can’t
control.
I’ve learned that my value can’t be reduced to a percentage of a
quota.
I’ve learned to see and address my fears—of not having enough,
of having to sell my house, of having my friends think I’m a
failure.
I’ve learned to be an advocate for what I need.
I’ve learned to define success differently and to
understand better what brings me happiness.
And I’ve had time to explore blogging and teaching about
applying wisdom practices to
the workplace, and have personally seen the benefits of
those practices on a daily basis.
In short, I would not have traded this experience for
anything.
Here are 5 reasons why it’s sometimes OK to not know
what’s coming next:
When we think we should know, we get stressed out when we don’t
know things. But when we see that not knowing is our natural state,
we can actually open into that, into a state of curious detachment,
of childlike
wonder. What’s going to happen next? Will it be a
pleasant surprise, a learning opportunity, or both?
We can see that, in a sense, we can’t know anything. We’ve never
known anything. So when the time comes to make a
decision, we just give it our best shot. And we know
that we can always adjust if we need to.
When you know you don’t know (and can’t know), you look at the
world differently. Think of the time and money that we spend on
trying to predict the future. I’m a big fan of sports radio. About
ninety percent of it is pure speculation on who’s going to win or
lose and what that might mean. And the news is no different: the
debt crisis, the economy, the next Presidential race.
We don’t know what’s going to happen with any of this stuff.
It’s possible just to admit that. Instead of trying to keep up with
what all the pundits are saying, we can spend our time doing things
we enjoy, like spending time with our spouse and kids. Or enjoying
a walk in the park.
I wouldn’t have taken my current job if I’d known the outcome.
And I would have lost so much in the process. I think we can all
point to bad experiences that we would not have chosen—a difficult
job, the death of someone close
to us, struggling with a health issue.
And yet most of our growth comes from pain. I’ve seen
paraplegics and cancer victims smile as they relate the growth that
has come from their condition, insisting they wouldn’t have things
any other way. Often we only recognize in retrospect how valuable
an experience has been.
Of course we don’t want to know when bad stuff is going to
happen. But what about the surprise call from a friend? What about
the windfall you didn’t know was coming? What about the laughter of
a child?
A lot of the joy in life comes from surprise, too. And knowing
exactly what’s coming would take all of that away.
Let’s face it, not knowing is the natural state of things. When
we want to know things that we can’t know (like the future, or the
right course of action), all we create is frustration for
ourselves.
I know this can sound like “suck it up, you can’t change
anything,” but we really can change a lot. When we understand that
we can’t control what happens, we can devote more of our energy to
how we respond and what we learn. And we can open to a new sense of
ease in the process.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-reasons-its-ok-to-not-know-what-the-future-holds/
