Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Crucial Certainty

Being certain in what we are doing, thinking and feeling can be a crucial part of a successful existence. Certainty has nothing to do with right, wrong, correct or incorrect. It is a vessel in the pursuit of figuring out how to interact directly with your day, your life and your community in a real, substantive way. Without certainty, our actions are less than wholehearted, our thoughts are muddled and lax and our feelings are confused and disjointed from reality.

Some people begin with thoughts and feelings and then act; others do not think or feel anything about what they're doing before, during or after acting. Both strategies can have mixed results, making it difficult to ascertain the direct line of cause and effect. This can lead to confusion about how to become more effecient and increasingly effective in one's daily life.

When we use certainty at the front end of a situation and act on a gut level, we're using our minds and hearts in unison. The causes here are immediately accessible. Then, we can use our mental resources to collect raw data without being muddled with any feelings attached to the predicted results. This data then adds to our experience which will alter our gut level response in any similar situation.

This method also allows us to have a fresh emotional response to the results and how those results were produced. Sometimes, we all have managed to get what we want and not felt good about it at all. Other times, what we did to get the result we desired weighs us down, even if what we received or what happened was worthwhile in the end. These feelings alter that gut level response in future similar situations.

The key in certainty is to not allow ourselves to get attached to the results we want to see in anything we do. We need to always act with the assurance that we're going to do the best we are able to do now and ensure that the next set of decisions and situations are affected by what we do now. The only way to effectively do that is to let go of what we want to happen, explore the entire reality of the outcomes of what did take place and be as certain in the moment called right now.

1 comment:

  1. Not sure why one would not feel good about results produced from successful thought and actions and decisions. Unless, results were received at the expense of others or received by shortcuts instead of earning the results.
    Certainty is sometimes an illusion as one can act as if things are going as planned when indeed they are not. It could be that sometimes we do not 'own' situations that do not have the desirable outcome we hoped to obtain. Sometimes, the outcome is better than was originally hoped and someetimes it is not. Being able to adapt is necessary to save fragments of a partial plan or modify an ill-conceived plan. W/L meg

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