life requires uncertainty | JACKIE LEA SOMMERS

I used to get thrown by anything I couldn’t know FOR SURE.

Is real life real life, or am I just dreaming?

Am I going to heaven?

Are my friends really my friends?

What do people really think of me?

Are people even really people?

I mean, completely thrown. I had no framework for dealing with uncertainty. And the truth is that a person just cannot live that way. It’s not how life works.

Now that ERP has re-wired my mind, I am finally able to say, “I’m just going to have to accept that I can’t know” and carry on with life. I never thought I’d be able to approach such huge things with that kind of statement. Never. If you’re reading this and think that that is an impossibility for you, please know that I once thought the same.

In my lowest OCD years, uncertainty appeared to be my enemy, and I attempted to avoid it at all costs.

It was a losing fight since we cannot. avoid. uncertainty.

Now that I’ve switched teams and am an official cheerleader for uncertainty, I notice it in the positive sense now. No longer the terrifying stranger, creeping around the corners, I now see it as the exciting flash of risk stealing a smile my way.

“I know what it is,” said Peter; “it’s a beaver. I saw the tail.”

“It wants us to go to it,” said Susan, “and it is warning us not to make a noise.”

“I know,” said Peter. “The question is, are we to go to it or not? What do you think, Lu?”

“I think it’s a nice beaver,” said Lucy.

“Yes, but how do we know?” said Edmund.

“Shan’t we have to risk it?” said Susan. “I mean, it’s no good just standing here and I feel I want some dinner.”

For twenty years, I feared uncertainty. And Susan was right: it was no good just standing there.

P.S. The risk was worth it, and dinner was great.

JACKIE LEA SOMMERS

Author & Advocate

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