Death, Uncertainty, and Email
Recently, my five year old has been asking a lot of questions about what happens after we die. I keep my answers somewhat vague and noncommittal. I claim that Santa exists, yet it feels a bit dishonest to guarantee an afterlife. My sentences usually start with, “Some people believe…” and end with “but I’m not too sure.” I am trying to help her come to terms with uncertainty, but I know that this is a big ask of anyone.
I wonder if instead of focusing on the likely unsolvable question of death, we should be focusing our efforts on coming to terms with uncertainty. To me, that feels more attainable.
This got me thinking about uncertainty in general. It gets a bad rap and is often the driver of people’s stressors and complaints, but what would life without uncertainty be? If we knew exactly how each job, each friendship, each dinner would pan out? If when weighing an important decision, we could just flip to the end of the story and see how each choice turned out? We wouldn’t get to surprise loved ones with unexpected thoughtful acts. We wouldn’t get to sit at our kids’ games or recitals, wondering if things would go the way they wanted. We wouldn’t get to put everything into a project and wait to see how it’s received. Knowing everything would be a complete and utter bore.
So maybe, uncertainty is something we can try to appreciate. Maybe, it’s not always a bad thing, not even a neutral thing, but a positive that we can try to appreciate.
There are some instances where uncertainty is probably definitively bad, and some where it’s neutral. But I’ve been realizing that there are many times when I categorize it as bad, because I’m just in the habit of doing so.
When it comes to phone use, I wonder if the constant pick ups, the constant email and social media checks, are a response to cravings of certainty. Has my boss replied to my email? Has anyone liked my post yet? Maybe it’s okay not to know the answers to these questions, and to not let a need to immediately extinguish any and every uncertainty run the show, and your life. Maybe it’s okay not to know, not to check your phone.
