Five ways to embrace not knowing what you want
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
This post was originally published on TinyBuddha.com
“Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it.” ~Alan Watts
We sometimes hear of remarkable people who just knew what they wanted to become from a young age. I, however, was not one of them.
When I was about eight years old, I told my cousin that I wanted to become a scientist. Looking back, I find that pronouncement baffling since I wasn’t particularly interested in science at the time. What I did love doing, though, was making art.
My interest in art eventually led me to study graphic design. I thought that design would be a perfect fit since I’m creative and logical. But at a certain point, I realized that while design made some sense logically, it didn’t feel right to me.
I wondered, how could I have put so much time and effort into something I didn’t enjoy doing? It was only much later that I recognized my error: I believed that I had to have everything figured out completely.
Embracing not-knowing
What do you do when you realize what you worked so hard to attain isn’t what you want anymore? In this situation, many feelings may come up. I felt despair, fear, anger, resentment, sadness, hopelessness, and desperation.
These powerful emotions can overwhelm us and bring us into a state of paralysis. I remember wanting to pivot, but seeing numerous obstacles before me. If I make a drastic change now, I will have to start from zero, I thought.
I believe those thoughts and emotions stem from putting too much emphasis on the need to know. In the book The Overweight Brain, Lois Holzman, Ph.D., describes how our obsession with knowing “constrains creativity and risk-taking, keeps us and our dreams and ideas small, and stops us from continuing to grow and learn new things.”
As Holzman explains, infants don’t know much of anything. However, they grow tremendously in a relatively short period. They can develop this way by “not-knowing growing,” which one does through play.
Learning to play again
Let’s think for a moment. When you play a game, do you want to know what will happen next? If you did, then the game wouldn’t be any fun—there would be no point in playing it.
After working for seven years in my full-time job, I ended up quitting with nothing lined up and no idea of what to do next. Leaving your day job like this isn’t something I would suggest to everyone. But for me, it felt like the best thing to do at the time.
Taking a risk like that was exhilarating. I felt like a newborn child, free to explore the world and its possibilities again.
Before I made that decision, I used to sit in my office thinking, once I figure out what I want to do, I’ll be able to take some action. But I didn’t need to figure anything out. I just needed to begin by exploring.
As I tried many new things, I gained insight into who I was becoming. By interacting with the world with openness and curiosity, I found the clarity I needed to create my life with purpose.