Uncertainty is Where Life Begins

If you were to describe to somebody what it's like to be alive, what would you say?

Perhaps it's not as easy to answer as you would think. It's common for the mind to gravitate towards routine. It's like being on autopilot: it's comfortable, it's certain. It's like life is on a loop: everyday is the same because thought is the same. The mind and ego want to be comfortable for survival's sake. So the mind naturally wants to follow a safe, comfortable, and familiar routine. Routine is good if it expands you, but it's easier for the untrained mind to fall into a "comfortable routine": that which makes life mundane by fostering stagnant behavior.

Observe yourself: What do you do after work or school? What are your patterns? Your habits? What thoughts constantly arise within you? Are your thoughts pushing you towards growth; the unknown? Or are they keeping you in place? Remember that no matter where you are in life, there is always room to grow.

If life is comfortable and looses it's sense of adventure from the younger years of life, it may almost feel like the feeling of being alive has been robbed from you. It would seem that many of us don't really feel what it's like to be alive. Perhaps you are indeed flowing full of life or perhaps not as much as you would like. Do you ever watch an epic movie and wish that life could be as magical? Are you ever envious of adventure film characters? Wishing that you too could live a life of adventure, purpose, mystery, and magic?

Here's the deal: every great and inspiring character went into uncertainty. Their life was an adventure because they didn't constantly search for comfort. Sometimes an adventure found them because they were open to it and sometimes they found the adventure. Ask yourself what are you looking for? Are you looking for comfort or adventure? Whatever your thoughts focus on is where you will go and consequently what you will become. Realize that being alive is an adventure.

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity. - Eckhart Tolle

What keeps us from living the adventure is fear and the avoidance of that which is uncertain. Your life from birth was an uncertainty. Every choice has an outcome that we can never be fully certain of, no matter how calculated. The future is never set in stone and the present is filled with infinite uncertainties. For a lot of us, uncertainty causes fear. Fear is just a projection of the future; an illusion of the mind. Eckhart Tolle reminds us that we can be at peace anywhere if we come to the present. The present is where your life is, Tolle said to "realize deeply that the present moment is all you have".

Stop for a second and feel what it's like just to be. This place is always available to you. It is where your potential hides. This is why inner exploration is just as important as outer exploration. When you are fully in the present, there is no fear because you are not in the future. When you are in the present, you are in a place of complete acceptance of what is. Therefore, you are in acceptance of the uncertainty of now.

Make fear your friend. Embrace that which is uncertain and feel alive once again. Uncertainty is mystery and mystery is adventure. Imagination is uncertain, it shifts and it changes. Life is uncertain because it changes. Creativity isn't stagnant, it's ever changing; within you is a dance with the unknown. So accept uncertainty, let it lead your life.