Living the questions

When I was a preeschooler, I idolized the teenagers at my church, having a crush on one of them and constantly asking my mom, "Do you think Rus Horn likes this kind of chip?" and other questions that would indicate we were soul mates. I also went on imaginary dates to the Olive Garden where I drank Diet Coke and went skiing with my fake boyfriend Steve Olympic. In third grade, after years of watching Saved by the Bell, I lead my friends in pretending that we were really in college while at school, not spending our days learning multiplication. As a ninth grader, I dreamed of being a human rights attorney and working on behalf of women who whose lives were at risk of being destroyed by their governments or neighbors.

My natural way of thinking is to live in the future. I'm a planner, and I fall into dreaming about the good and beautiful life I will have in the next couple of years or next ten years. This personality is not always a negative thing--it helps me be strategic in my work and I am proud to have pursued a career in social advocacy, even though I later realized there are many more options than being a human rights attorney.

I can so easily get caught up in what might happen next, though, that I don't fully live in the present. There are probably not many people who feel comfortable with uncertainty, with the fear of pain that could come from things not going our way. It's obvious, though, that my plans are sometimes short-sighted. I have, thankfully, never been on a date to the Olive Garden and ordered Diet Coke--my idea of a glamorous date has changed over the years.

This week, I am trying to be intentional about living in the present, enjoying this time, and not being fearful of the future or jumping the gun to conclude things that I'm not ready to have an answer for.

My friend Katie posted this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, and I really love it.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter or books written in a foreign language. Don't dig for answers that cannot be given yet: you cannot live them now. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Doesn't that make uncertainty sound so much more beautiful?