Thriving In Uncertainty: Why Taking Risks is an Essential Ingredient to Life
Being comfortable — there’s nothing wrong with it. Some of us just want to spend each evening in the same place, doing the same thing. Some of us don’t want change. Or if we do allow change, we allow it only in a very controlled way. We travel, but we travel to Hawaii so we don’t have to leave the comfort of our country. We explore, but we travel in luxury vehicles so we don’t have to deal with the uncertainty of the road. We stay overnight elsewhere, but we stay in resorts with all the comforts of home, in hotels and brands we recognize. We long for comfort.
Yet, if you’ve striven to go out on a limb, to do something on your own, you know the limitations of comfort. Eventually, comfort gets boring. There’s no way around it. We strive, day in and day out, for the thing that eventually drives us crazy.
If there is one thing that is the complete opposite of comfort, that one thing has to be uncertainty. As it so happens, embracing a bit of uncertainty in your life can help cure the ailments caused by your obsessive desire for comfort. Here’s how.
Real Adventure Requires Uncertainty
“Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” – Irving Wallace
Everyone longs for adventure. We long either for adventure, or to be on an adventure with someone else, or a little bit of both. So what do we do? We take prefabricated routes — we follow guides written by big names. We take cruises that guide us safely to each and every location. To put it simply, we try to take adventure without risking uncertainty. But uncertainty is the very essence of adventure. Without it, your experience will never feel as real as it could. Without uncertainty, you might as well be watching the whole thing at home on TV.
But Uncertainty is Painful
As I mentioned already, however, uncertainty is incredibly painful. We crave to go on charted courses, to follow the tried and true method. We won’t buy anything, eat anything, do anything that someone we know hasn’t already done and excelled at. So why welcome uncertainty at all? To put it very bluntly, embracing uncertainty makes you stronger.
“And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Facing Uncertainty Means Facing Your Fears
“Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear.” — Joseph Campbell
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, I think that would be this — we’d like to be more brave. We look up to the brave, don’t we? Think about your own personal heroes, or our American heroes. George Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. And countless others all one thing in common — they were incredibly brave. But many of us live comfortable lives. We don’t think we are brave because we never have the opportunity to face our fears. There’s not a lot to be afraid of in our daily jobs. There are pencils, lunches, meetings. Everything is scheduled, safe, and predictable.
To get this feeling of bravery, many of us take on extreme sports. We go rock climbing, jet skiing, or diving to feel the adrenaline of exposing ourselves to the elements. And these are probably good practice ways to face some small fears. But the fear of physical danger is not as great as our ultimate fear — the fear of the unknown.
Those Who Face the Unknown Become the Strongest Of Us
When you think about the people we look up to the most, they all have one thing in common. Walt Disney. Steve Jobs. Great inventors, artists, writers and beyond have all done this one, impossible thing. They faced the unknown. And they came out on the other side as victors. Walt Disney is a great example of someone who faced the incredible unknown, and achieved something that most of us could not even imagine achieving in our dizziest daydreams.
Driven by his desire to create and create what he wanted, not what others wanted him to make, Walt pursued the unknown. He basically established animation as a serious art form. Before Snow White, animation was seen as a gag — something theaters used to get a few laughs before the show began. Today, animated movies generate vasts amounts of money. But creating Snow White was a huge test in facing the unknown. Nobody knew how to create an animated feature of that magnitude. It simply had not been done before. Walt had to face uncertainty every day of his life. It was the only way to achieve what he achieved.
Similarly, anyone today who desires to take an uncharted course and go somewhere unfamiliar, to face uncertainty, they must begin to court uncertainty as if uncertainty were a friend. They must learn to rely not on the things that most of us rely on — social acceptance, status, and titles. Instead, they must find intense internal motivation and direction towards their own, self defined goals.
Accepting Risk Is Essential
Ultimately, choosing to face uncertainty takes a great risk. As it so happens, taking risks is necessary in any great human venture. It’s risky to ask that girl out to prom. She might reject you. It’s even riskier, however, to fall in love with someone. That someone very well might let you down. It’s risky to go into a job interview because the odds are pretty solid you won’t get the job (it takes several interviews to get one job offer on average). Our life is littered with risk. It’s scary, and for this reason, many people choose not to take risks, and end up living only half the life they could have lived otherwise.
How Can You Start Taking Risks and Facing Uncertainty?
Maybe you’ve opted out of taking risks, choosing instead the life of comfort. If that’s the case, then there is probably something in you that knows you are missing out. Maybe you’ve never pursued that job you wanted out of fear. Maybe you’ve avoided relationships. Maybe you’ve never taken that trip overseas, or maybe there’s an educational or financial goal you’ve been too scared to pursue. What can you do today to start pursuing uncertainty, and becoming okay with it?
Like with anything, you need to learn to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. Start with the small things. What little thing would you like to do that is risky? So many things are risky, I’m sure you can find one. I recently learned how to swing a golf club, for example. This was inherently risky. It involved going down to the golf course and waking golf balls looking like an idiot who couldn’t swing. I had to risk looking like an idiot in order to learn how to swing a golf club. This is a very, very minimal risk. But doing these little, daily things can build up, and help you take that big risk, and face real uncertainty.
Ultimately, uncertainty should be a part of your every day life. If you find yourself facing it, wondering how the bills will get paid, how things are going to turn out, then you’re right where you should be.
