I am upset because I see
a meaningless world.

I think one of the hardest things for me is not knowing what something means.

Give me uncertainty and my mind will usually fix that problem very quickly.

Someone is quiet? I’ll decide why.

Plans change? I’ll decide what that says about the future.

Something I wanted doesn’t work out? Within minutes I can turn it into a statement about my entire life.

Apparently “I don’t know yet” is not the mind’s favorite place to live.

And maybe that helps me understand this lesson.

If the meanings I normally rely on are not as solid as I think they are, there’s a moment when things can feel strangely empty. If I stop saying, This proves I’m failing, or This means she doesn’t care, or This means everything is finally going my way, then what am I left with?

For a minute, maybe I’m left with not knowing.

That can feel uncomfortable.

I’m used to organizing life quickly into categories. Good. Bad. Success. Failure. Safe. Dangerous. Wanted. Unwanted. Going well. Going terribly.

I rarely stop to notice how much security those labels give me, even when the label itself hurts.

There have been times when I would rather decide someone was rejecting me than admit I didn’t know what they were thinking. At least rejection gave me an explanation. A painful explanation, yes, but an explanation.

The mind likes a story. It especially likes one it already knows.

Maybe that’s why uncertainty can make me so restless. If I don’t immediately give a situation meaning, I can’t tell myself what to feel about it yet. I can’t prepare for the ending. I can’t decide who’s wrong. I can’t even decide whether this is the thing I’ll someday call a blessing or the thing I’ll complain about for the next five years.

I just have to be here.

And honestly, sometimes I would rather write the ending.

But I’m beginning to see how much suffering comes from the meanings I rush to assign.

A relationship changes, and I call it failure.

My child struggles, and I make it evidence that I’ve done something wrong.

I don’t get what I wanted, and I decide I’ve been denied something essential.

Someone has more than I do, and I turn their life into commentary on mine.

Those meanings don’t simply describe the experience. They tell me who I am inside it.

That’s where they get their power.

And what if I don’t know?

What if this event does not actually contain the verdict I’ve been reading into it?

That doesn’t mean I stop caring about life or lose all practical judgment. I still have preferences. I still want people I love to be well. I still want relationships to work, bills to be paid, bodies to be healthy, and difficult situations to resolve.

But maybe those things don’t get to tell me what I am.

That feels like a very different kind of freedom.

I can be disappointed without making disappointment mean I’m abandoned.

I can be uncertain without deciding I’m unsafe.

I can lose something I wanted without turning the loss into a statement about whether I’m loved.

Maybe the discomfort this lesson points toward is the little gap between the old meaning and something I haven’t learned to see yet.

And I don’t have to fill that gap immediately.

I can let something be unresolved for a minute. The mind will probably hate that.

Fine.

It has had the microphone for quite a while.

So if something upsets me today, especially something uncertain, I want to notice the meaning I’m reaching for. Am I trying to turn this moment into proof that I’m safe or unsafe, loved or unloved, winning or losing?

Not knowing isn’t necessarily the problem.

Maybe the problem is how quickly fear rushes in to make sure I never have to find out.