The Privilege of Certainty

Two weeks ago, I was in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with two of my sisters. I had been on a business trip on March 11th when everything related to our new reality was really starting to gain momentum. We had planned this weekend for months and it still felt appropriate to go and so I met up with my sisters on March 12th.

By Friday March 13th, I knew my business was going to take an enormous hit, and by Saturday I started to wonder if the future I imagined was crumbling away, and by Sunday…..I felt an enormous sense of relief.

My relief came from the realization that every person on the planet was unified in this uncertainty. It didn’t matter if you were a business owner, an executive, a reality tv star, a server, a student. It didn’t matter if you were wealthy or living paycheck to paycheck. EVERYONE was thrusted into this universal uncertainty.

Do you know what the definition of Uncertainty is? Not having certain knowledge.

I started to think about that more. What this moment brings up for a lot of people is uncertainty. So not having certain knowledge. Like not knowing if they will remain employed or not knowing if their business will survive or not knowing if they or a loved one will remain healthy or not knowing how they will pay their bills or not knowing how long this will last and not knowing if their lives have forever been changed in the last few weeks.

So then I wondered, well before this, were we really CERTAIN of all of the above?

In this unified experience, there are many of us who have lived a degree of privilege in certainty but are now part of a level playing field with millions of people who have lived with uncertainty on a daily basis.

This moment of unified uncertainty is bringing up a lot of questions. It is exposing the cracks in our structures that we have been able to ignore because of our privilege of certainty both individually and collectively.

I see this moment as one of enormous opportunity. Life HAS forever been changed in the last few weeks. It won’t go back to the way it was. And as we allow ourselves to grieve and process, we can allow ourselves to compassionately look at the cracks, observe the questions, and perhaps reflect on what we are certain of.

Certain that we have no control over external circumstances. Certain that we are not alone in this experience. Certain that there will always be uncertainty. And certain we have control over our mindset. This last one is the biggie. It's the one you can be certain will define this moment for you.

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