Cluelessness will often strike, but you have a choice not to feel helpless!
A friend from the US called to say that she is at a cross-roads in Life. She has been laid off her job. She’s broken up with her boyfriend. She’s in a new relationship. And she’s figuring out what to do with her Life. She’s in her late 30s and feels both “hopeless and hopeful” at the same time: “I not sure I know where I am going in Life. I have stumbled along for over 15~17 years of my Life…I have only money enough to last me for 3 months without any employment…I feel stupid having done the many things I have done…only to find myself in this vague, directionless state in Life…”!
Surely, I don’t think my friend is either the first one to feel this way or the only one who is feeling lost at the moment. As I write this blogpost, I too am clueless about what’s going to happen next in my Life…but I am not hopeless. And this is the critical, discernable, difference between being anchored in faith and groping in fear.
Faith is not a privilege that only a select few have access to. It is not external at all – as all the religions, through their dogmatic pursuit of rituals, want you to believe. It is simply understanding and knowing that if you have been created, you will be provided for and taken care of. It is about trusting the process of Life. And this trust comes from your willingness to deal with the unknown, from facing your fears. When you look fear in the eye, it gives you the courage to face it, and courage opens the doors to faith within to last the course, to survive, to plow on!
Hopelessness sets in only when you don’t trust Life to take care of you. And when you have naïve, uninformed expectations of Life. Consider this carefully – has Life promised you anything; has it given you any guarantees; has it denied you anything that you have needed in Life so far? If the answer is no to all three questions, why do you doubt Life? Why do you think you will not get what you need? I have learnt that you always get what you need in Life, perhaps not the way you want it, but the way Life deems it appropriate for you to receive its grace. So, while I often face cluelessness, but I have stopped, in fact I have given up, feeling hopeless, long, long, ago!
Now, dealing with cluelessness is never easy. The human mind will torture you by conjuring scenarios that are dark, frightful and, often morbid. But when you are not feeling hopeless, when you are anchored in faith, you learn to cope with not knowing what’s going on or what will happen. So, being clueless is inevitable in Life. But being hopeless is something that you can avoid.
I have actually begun to love being clueless. It keeps me creatively engaged – it gives me the opportunity to find out newer ways of living Life meaningfully, it sharpens my intellect, it enhances my resilience and make me further trust the process of Life. Most important, it helps me see the miracle in every moment as it unfolds. Figuring out a way through Life, I have realized, is what Life is all about!
