Source: 3lostkids.tumblr.com via Trish on Pinterest
This past week, a friend of mine, Jonathan Field’s, new book launched, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brilliance, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I saw an advanced reading copy weeks ago and yet this past week, with all the blog tour appearances and all the great review coverage about uncertainty, was when I most needed to think about the difficult fact of being uncertain.
I’m very uncertain about the immediate future. I’m in a place I’ve never been before. It both scares me and exhilarates me. I despise stress and crave it. I know in the past I’ve used my work stress as a way to stay in denial about things in my life, and yet, for the first time in a long time, I’m stressing about something that is NOT being used as a way to stay in denial. I’m facing the truth and feeling the pressure. I’m very uncertain.
I face new adventures (I’m no longer just an intern, but an agent-in-training, on the cusp of finding my first author clients) and I’m traveling next week in that role, with editor lunch meetings on my own (eek!) and with my agency bosses. This is so new, and yet, I was so born for this.
But it is still very uncertain. I don’t know how to walk this road. I think everything that I’ve been taught about “how” to do things right goes out the window. Most of this job is up to me and how I “feel” about things. If I love a book, that’s the point. It’s a return to my right brain, to the younger version of myself, to that instant emotion that springs up no matter how “left brain” I get about my life. (And as an editor, I’m very left brained.)
My right brain has always been neutral about uncertainty. My right brain looked uncertainty in the face and helped me launch my small business. My right brain stares down uncertainty and helps me accomplish my biggest goals. I think my right brain habit bodes well for me.
I will not give up on something that I truly believe in. No matter how much pressure comes to bear, I will not let go. Call it tenacity, stubbornness, hard-headed, I don’t care. In the face of uncertainty, you’ve got to just keep at it. Uncertainty is not going away anytime soon for me, but by golly, my right brain is helping me this week. It’s shaking its fist at the unknown this week. It’s not mad, it’s just all feist and feeling.
It’s said that when you always having to be certain about everything, you’re dead. I say let’s be certain about one thing and then let the rest of it go.
What say you?
