Not Knowing What's Next

It’s interesting how I feel that I have been privileged with a lot of uncertainty: not ever knowing for certain what I would be doing in 5-10 years, and yet learning to accept that this is always going to be the case. Still, it’s good to have a direction or a reminder to oneself as to why one is doing what one does, especially when embarking on bigger projects. I have found the Buddhist perspective on making vows to be useful in this regard, because vows are not hooked to concrete, absolute plans. They are more like what one does when swimming in an ocean: it’s just moving through the conditions with the intent of a certain direction or orientation, without knowing what waves are going to arise next, or even if there is going to be a tidal wave.

What is the faith that keeps a person going in these situations? I don’t have an answer to this, but I think that it’s important to let go of attachment to ‘finishes’. Nothing ever completely finishes, in fact, but everything has something through which one can learn. If opportunities are being used to connect and dissolve artificial boundaries that people put up, then there is no need to cling to the future result or feel regret if the ‘final’ goal is not achieved. This is perhaps one of the hardest challenges that I have to face in terms of my outlook on life, because I often want to have clear-cut answers when there are none. I want to know where I ‘best’ fit, but sometimes it’s in the ‘mis-fitting’ that I find the deepest lessons, including how to be compassionate toward those who ‘don’t fit’, which is pretty much the whole of humanity. I do want to be able to swim with the flow of things, but I am aware that even in myself there are going to be difficult emotions and obstacles that may be beyond my control. At best, the contemplative approach allows me to be present and not shift between extremes of wanting to escape and feelings of despair.