How many times have you been asked if you were certain about your answer? How many times have you, yourself, asked others about it? What was the purpose of it? What did you accomplish asking it or being asked it?
I personally believe in the fact that the only constant in life is change; therefore, what’s the point of certainty!? From my experience, being certain is needed in some situations. For example, as a chemist by training, I worked on many projects that required results with precision and certainty. These projects involved data related to human health, environmental issues, and many industry regulations. If the mercury level in a new drug development exceeded certain FDA limits, it could be harmful or lethal to human intake. In these situations, certainty is needed.
We live most of our lives fearing to make a mistake so we don’t look fools or so others won’t judge us as failures! How do you think Einstein reached the point he did? He failed at ~99% of his experiments before he got the one that successfully worked. He didn’t give up and he didn’t know with certainty which experimental conditions will lead to the successful outcome. He was clear on the direction he needed to take and he was clear on the direction that didn’t work too. He established that clarity from the multiple failures he experienced.
Take a look at these clouds in the different pictures. I was riding the car with my daughter when I took them and was fascinated by the possibilities.
Below is the sequence of my different thoughts through the process of noticing them and taking pictures:
- These are so cool and fluffy
- I wonder what they are, really!
- Hmmm…they look like 2 rats playing
- Oh, that looks like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck! Hahaha
- This close up makes the lower one looks like a mermaid?
- Now they look like a mermaid haunted by a ghost!
Which one of these thoughts am I expressing with certainty? None! I simply established some clarity, took a stab at some possibilities, and expressed my perspective. Also, with every thought there was a different emotion associated with it. Some felt funny while others felt weird expressing. I also was sharing my thoughts with my daughter who was laughing with me. Now, if I was aiming for certainty, would I have shared any of these thoughts? I likely would have been contemplating what to make out of those clouds and feared taking the pictures I took until I was certain I captured the perfect picture for the perfect thought!
Amazing what you can learn with and from nature, if you allow yourself to do so. Who would have thought that watching the clouds and taking pictures of them would teach us a lesson on certainty and clarity (at least I learned a lot). To be certain is to be attached to the outcome and pinning yourself down to something you may or may not be able to achieve. To be clear, on the other hand, is to take the next step that will get you closer to your desired outcome without any attachment.
“Although our intellect always longs for clarity, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.” Carl von Clausewitz