BREXIT, Trump, ISIS, Global Warming …
There is so much uncertainty in the world. Uncertainty is taking over.
The newspapers are full of it. The television, radio and internet all bombard us with the “doom of uncertainty” We become paralysed by uncertainty. How can I make a decision if I don’t know what will happen? The financial markets are turbulent and twitchy because of “uncertainty”. Billions have been wiped off the share value of organisations and pension funds due to market “uncertainty”
We say this is the “most uncertain” ever! Our uncertainty is increasing. I’m uncertain about how much uncertainty there is in the world. We have even coined a special word to empathise just how uncertain life is by adding a few more uncertain uncertainties to it – “It’s a VUCA World, watch out”!!
VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous
As is the trend in media, uncertainty is now expressed in comparatives and superlatives. More uncertain! Most uncertain! “It can’t get any worse”! Aargh!
But this is untrue. Uncertainty is an excuse. “Certainty” does not exist and never has existed. Consider even the creation of mankind; how many “uncertainties” collided to enable us to appear? Ask any weather forecaster (or sailor) about uncertainty?
So what is certain ?
“Death and taxes” is the old phrase that comes to mind. But that’s the point ; it is an “old phrase”. One your Grandmother told you and she learnt it from her Grandmother. There are many religions that believe that even “death” is not certain; it is a transition. And if you read the papers today about Apple and Ireland, then even the paying of taxes does not seem to be a certainty (for some)!
Uncertainty is not new. It’s not a modern malaise. It always has been and always will be.
Certainty is not real. It cannot exist. It never has and it never will.
So let us all embrace uncertainty. Let us all not make an excuse of uncertainty. Let us all enjoy the opportunities, surprises and excitement that uncertainty brings.
Bring it on and let us accept the challenge of life with open arms, an open mind and an open heart, because, as my Grandmother once told me “It will all work out in the end, because it has to”!
Hey ho!
