Carmen - The gift of maybe: finding hope and possibility in uncertain times

The future aint what it used to be.

YOGI BERRA

For most of my life, I had an addiction that no doctor could cure. This addiction caused me anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, and sometimes such hopelessness that my next breath itself seemed a burden. My addiction wasnt to alcohol or drugs. I wasnt a shopaholic or a compulsive gambler. Yet this addiction almost destroyed me, and it afflicts millions of people around the world.

My addiction was to certainty. At every moment in my life, I desperately sought to know what was going to happen next. My need for certainty caused me to believe that the unexpected was always negative. I became devastated whenever things took an unexpected turn because I believed it meant the life I had envisioned for myself was no longer possible. I continually sacrificed my goals and desires in an effort to feel safe and secure. Yet no matter what I did I could not escape uncertainty, and the choices I made in an effort to attain certainty always led to compromise and disappointment.

The symptoms of addiction to certainty are peculiar and particular to each person, but the common denominator is unnecessary suffering. In my case, I would lie awake at night in fear of what might be, unable to catch my breath and unable to control my minds chatter. Was my livelihood secure? Would my husband always love me? Could I afford my life? Were the stocks I invested in safe? Would my parents, children, and other family members stay well? Would there be a large-scale disaster in my city? Would I or would I not get a raise this quarter? What would the results of my annual checkup be? This onslaught of sleeplessness and anxiety began taking a toll on my immune system and I actually started getting sick.

The need to know the future had gripped me as a teenager, and most of my twenties were spent in stress. In my thirties, though I was at the top of my career as an attorney, I was deeply unhappy and suffering physically. No doctor could identify my illness, but my symptoms included an array of infections, allergies, anxiety, and depression. So I turned to alternative medicine, meditation, acupuncture, and any other practice I thought might relieve my physical and emotional pain. I found some tools to ease my mind, but when a big issue or conflict infiltrated my life, I still spun out of control. I even went so far as to become best friends with a woman with psychic abilities in hopes she could lift the veil of uncertainty and tell me what the future had in store for me.

One day, still in the midst of pressing anxiety about the future, I went to see my Qigong teacher for a lesson. I related to him my tale of woe, and he responded with a simple story that, for me, changed everything.

Here is the story.

One day, a farmers horse ran away. His neighbor came by and said, You have the worst luck. The farmer replied to the neighbor, Maybe. The next day, the horse returned with five mares, and the neighbor came by and said, You have the best luck. The farmer replied, Maybe. The day after that, the farmers son was riding the horse and fell off and broke his leg, and the neighbor came by and said to the farmer, You have the worst luck. The farmer replied, Maybe. The next day, the army came looking to draft the boy for combat but he could not go because his leg was broken. The neighbor came by and said, You have the best luck. Again the farmer said, Maybe.

I will remember the moment I heard this simple story for the rest of my life. It was in this moment that I was able to feel space in my breath. It was in this moment that, for the first time, I had a place to park my thoughts and just sit in a place called Maybe. In this place, it felt all right not to know the future, and suddenly I was filled with an inexplicable hope.

As time passed, I learned that this world of Maybe created hope because it allowed me to see the infinite ways that every situation could unfold. I realized that things might not always go as planned, but that in the next moment things would change and Maybe for the better. I had been so busy in my life worrying that the horse could run away that it never occurred to me that he could also come back.

Over time I have come to realize that Maybe is a place, a philosophy, a seed, and a magic elixir all at once. Maybe is the part of uncertainty where endless possibilities live and breathe. Maybe is not a matter of probability, as in There is an 80 percent chance a situation could be bad and a 20 percent chance it could work out well. Instead, it is a space within the uncertainty of life, a mind-set that suggests that for every situation we experience, there are numerous ways it may resolve. Within these many possibilities, maybe there is a chance a situation that I am facing will work out well, or maybe the answer will come to me, or maybe I will be all right no matter what happens. The essence of Maybe or what may be contains the hope within uncertainty.

Some people might disagree with my interpretation of the farmer story, but I cannot deny the life-changing experience I had when I heard it for the first time. For me, Maybe became a window through which to view all that can be. Within that open space exists so many wonderful possibilities that give me hope and strength to endure uncertainty. As I began to live in the realm of Maybe, my fears of the unknown dissolved, and I established a new future filled with opportunities, a future that has me realizing many of the hopes and dreams I thought Id sacrificed to worry long ago.