"Uncertainty" is "Change's" cousin, you can count on both.
Every month I have calendar invite that reminds me to write a blog. Sometimes I have something in mind and other times I have to work at it and really think about what I want to share and how I want to connect with you. I’m typically uncertain what it may look like until I sit at the computer and start letting it flow. As an example, this blog came to me while I was in the shower. 😊
As an entrepreneur, I’m in it to help people find solutions to and solve problems that are impacting their organization, profession, or community. I hope that my efforts will be embraced, applied, and put into action. I believe in what I do 100% to make a positive impact, yet there is uncertainty. Will the client put in the time, effort, and energy?
When I’m hired as a speaker and take the stage or the floor, I hope the message I share resonates with not only with the person or committee that hired me but with the audience that I’m standing in front of. There is always a certain degree of uncertainty.
As a parent, the uncertainty begins as soon as they leave the womb. What does their future hold? The only certainty comes from what we as parents choose to put forth – love, compassion, energy, patience, time, boundaries, support, hugs and some cashola (and more moolah does not equate to more certainty). As the kids grow into young adults, the only thing you can be certain of is what you put into it. Eventually the kiddo must take the reins and make their choices for how they want their life to proceed.
When planning for retirement, or investing in general, uncertainty is always present. You make investments around your tolerance for risk and uncertainty in products and companies that you believe in or have a good feeling about. You do your due diligence to work with someone with more expertise than you to help guide you through the process. Your investments, even while in multiple baskets, are still left to the uncertainties of fluctuating economics which no psychic or economist can predict.
For the past 3 weeks I have been in the throws of uncertainty around my health. I’ve had my fair share of interesting health concerns from concussion, hip surgery to repair a torn labrum, and chronic bladder infections to name a few. As humans, there are a huge variety of ways our bodies experience injury, illness, disease, and trauma. There are also a huge variety of ways that we experience health, physically, socially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. When I started experiencing a variety of symptoms that didn’t make since to me and were interfering in the way I would prefer to live life, I went to the doctor. I was grateful to have a doctor who listened, asked good questions and was willing to run tests. Because we were all uncertain about what I was experiencing. Ok, my husband and I were more uncertain than she was. I’m thinking she was working to eliminate other possibilities.
I participated in some unusual and typical tests. The MRI for my brain left me with great uncertainty over the weekend. What might they find? Or will they find everything is just fine? Then more uncertainty about what’s going on? Ack!! It’s a never-ending circle. My brain went nuts with the uncertainty and the possibilities. How would I tell our kids? How is my life going to change? Honestly, I just wanted a large cocktail and to forget about it until the results came back, but I’d gone a hiatus from booze for 4 weeks and I was sticking to it. Uncertainty be damned.
What I’ve learned is that life is full of uncertainty. At every crossroads, every big decision, every leap of faith, every risk to put yourself out there, in every dream and every worry. For those of us with control issues, yeah, I’m looking at myself, it’s even more challenging. Sometimes I envy those people who can leave it up to the universe or God or a higher power of choice to take care of. I haven’t really been one of those people. Uncertainty is something you can certainly count on…see what I did there. 😉 I’m pretty sure “uncertainty” is “change’s” cousin, you can count on both.
Now I’m staring down the diagnosis of something I’m wholly unfamiliar with. Something only .2% (yeah there’s a point in front of that 2) of the population gets to deal with, live with, manage, have part of their person, suffer with, be impacted by, annoyed with, challenged by…you get the idea.
Don’t get me wrong I’m grateful to be out of the uncertainty of knowing what’s going on. I’ve just moved on to the uncertainty of treatment options, how it’s experienced differently by people also diagnosed with it, how it’s invisible, and how it might impact the quality of my life. What I do know is that I’m in charge of and in control of making those choices and while I can’t control the outcome, what I can control is my attitude, actions and what I choose to put forth for myself…love, compassion, energy, patience, time, support, hope, and well, probably some cashola. If you can embrace the suck and still be hopeful, you can embrace the uncertainty.
