Uncomfortable Place Of Uncertainty
अनिश्चितता का असहज स्थान- मार्गरेट व्हीटली ( २२ मई, २०१९)
हम इस बात को मानने के लिए तैयार नहीं किये गए हैं कि हमें पता नहीं है । हम में से अधिकांश लोगों को सिखाया गया था कि हम निश्चित और विश्वासपूर्ण दिखें और अपनी राय को इस तरह से पेश करें जैसे वह सच हो। हमें भ्रमित होने के लिए कभी पुरस्कृत नहीं किया गया। या त्वरित उत्तर देने के बजाय अधिक प्रश्न पूछने के लिए। हमने यह निर्धारित करने के लिए कि हम उनसे सहमत हैं या नहीं, मुख्य रूप से दूसरों को सुनने में कई साल बिताए हैं। हमारे पास बैठने और उन्हें सुनने लिए समय या रुचि नहीं है, जो हमारे विचार से अलग सोचते हैं।
हमारी निश्चितताओं - हमारे मतो, हमारी मान्यताओं, हमारे स्पष्टीकरणों - इन सब की निश्चितता को छोड़ना बहुत मुश्किल है। ये हमें परिभाषित करने में मदद करते हैं; वे हमारी व्यक्तिगत पहचान के केंद्र में रहते हैं। फिर भी मुझे विश्वास है कि हम इस दुनिया को बदलने में तभी सफल होंगे जब हम नए तरीकों से सोचने और काम करने में समर्थ हो जाएंगे।
जिज्ञासा वह चीज़ है जिसकी हमें आवश्यकता है। हमें उसे छोड़ने की ज़रूरत नहीं जिस पर हम विश्वास करते हैं, लेकिन हमें इस बात के लिए भी उत्सुक होने की आवश्यकता है कि कोई अन्य व्यक्ति क्या सोचता है। हमें यह स्वीकार करने की आवश्यकता है कि दुनिया की व्याख्या करने का उनका तरीका हमारे अस्तित्व के लिए आवश्यक हो सकता है। किसी अन्य व्यक्ति द्वारा चीजों की व्याख्या करने के बारे में उत्सुक होने के लिए, हमें यह स्वीकार करने के लिए तैयार रहना होगा कि हम अकेले चीजों का अनुमान लगाने में सक्षम नहीं हैं।
हाल ही में, मैं ऐसी चीज़ें सुनने की कोशिश कर रहीं हूँ जो मुझे आश्चर्यचकित करे दें। मैंने अभी-अभी ऐसा क्या सुना जिसने मुझे चौंका दिया? यह आसान नहीं है - मैं बैठकर उन बातों पर अपना सर हिलाने की आदी हूँ जिनसे मैं सहमत हूं। लेकिन जब मैं उन बातों पर ध्यान देती हूँ जो मुझे आश्चर्यचकित करती हैं, तो मैं अपने खुद के विचारों, विश्वासों और मान्यताओं सहित, और अधिक प्रिय रूप से देख पाती हूं।
अदृश्य मान्यताओं को देखने के लिए मुझे जो आश्चर्यचकित और परेशान करता है , उसे देखना बहुत ही उपयोगी तरीका साबित हुआ है। अगर आप जो कहते हैं, वो मुझे आश्चर्यचकित करता है, तो मुझे लगता है कि सच कुछ और था। यदि आप जो कहते हैं वो मुझे परेशान करता है, तो मैं निश्चततः आपसे किसी विपरीत बात पर विश्वास करती हूँ। आपके मत पर मेरा ताज्जुब मेरे स्वयं के मत को प्रदर्शित करता है। जब मैं अपने आप को यह कहते हुए सुनती हूं, "कोई भी ऐसा कुछ कैसे मान सकता है?" मेरे खुद के विश्वासों को देखने के लिए एक रोशनी जल उठती है। ये पल बहुत बड़े उपहार हैं। यदि मैं अपने विश्वासों और अपनी मान्यताओं को देख सकती हूं, तो मैं यह तय कर सकती हूं कि क्या मैं अभी भी उन्हें महत्व देती हूं।
कभी-कभी हम मतभेदों को सुनने में संकोच करते हैं क्योंकि हम बदलना नहीं चाहते। हम अपने जीवन को लेकर सहज हैं, और अगर हमने किसी की बात सुनी जिसने सवाल उठाए हैं, तो हमें चीजों को बदलने में लगना होगा। यदि हम नहीं सुनते हैं, तो चीजें जैसे हैं वैसे ही रह सकती हैं जैसी वो हैं और हमें कोई ऊर्जा खर्च नहीं करनी पड़ेगी। लेकिन हम में से ज्यादातर लोग अपने जीवन में या दुनिया में ऐसी चीजें देखते हैं जिन्हें हम अलग देखना चाहते हैं। यदि यह सच है, तो हमें और अधिक सुनना होगा, कम नहीं। और हमें अनिश्चितता की बहुत असहज जगह में जाने के लिए तैयार रहना होगा।
विचार के लिए मूल प्रश्न: आप अनिश्चितता से क्या समझते हैं? क्या आप कोई व्यक्तिगत अनुभव बाँट सकते हैं जब आप 'अनिश्चितता के बहुत असहज स्थान' में चले गए हों? आपको खुद को बदलने की दिशा में खुद को खुले रखने में क्या मदद करता है?
मार्गरेट व्हीटली कई पुस्तकों की एक प्रसिद्ध लेखिका हैं। उपरोक्त अंश 'विलिंग टू बी डिस्टर्बड' से है।
Margaret Wheatley is a celebrated author of many books. Excerpt above is from 'Willing To be Disturbed.'
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How do you relate to uncertainty? Can you share a personal experience of a time you moved into the 'very uncomfortable place of uncertainty'? What helps you stay open to changing yourself?
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10 Past Reflections
On May 30, 2019 Varuna Khullar wrote :
Hello,
We gather in Awakin Circles on Wednesday in India and yesterday this passage was picked up for discussions. Amid the circle reflections, I liked a gentleman's anecdote who compared a frog in a well situation to his understanding of this passage.
It goes like this:A frog inside a well who never gets a chance to get out of a well, thinks that the high walled, dark and deep watered well is the only World. There is nothing beyond it. All through its life, if the frog never hops out of the well, he perceives world to be running in one way. Everything inside the well is known to the frog with closed eyes over the number of years it has spent inside it. So, what happens when one day the frog is suddenly taken out of the well? The moment it is exposed to the sunlight, the immediate surroundings of the well, it is shocked, there is a total disbelief and a fight to get into a survival mode, even though it may be completely safe. The frog in that moment is uncomfortable in an uncertain... [View Full Comment]
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On May 21, 2019 David Doane wrote :
The Buddha supposedly said "Always have the beginner's mind." I appreciate that advice and often maintain that attitude. I accept uncertainty as a fact of life. I have become comfortable to a great extent in the place of uncertainty by living and seeing that there is no certainty, at least not in the present and future. There is only some certainty as to the past. My mantra in living is process, not product, meaning my effort is to focus on what is happening and on right action knowing that there is no certainty as to the outcome. I'm not certain what the right action is -- I like when I trust my feelings, my guts, my heart, my intuition, my thinking, and my learning and go with action that is in line with those. What helps me stay open to changing myself is knowing that change is always and change can be growthful, so as long as I'm changing I want for my change to be in a way that is growthful for myself.
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On May 21, 2019 Martin vanZyl wrote :
Uncertainty makes me human, in that it encourages me to invoke my free will choice to evolve and much as my old ego patterning would love me to say that I am the first to do this,it is just not true.Years' ago, I was lucky enough to stumble across the teachings of the Twisted Hair Elders For thousands of years they have been imparting knowledge that works and having this lineage connection makes the journey easier and more pleasurable and also more unpredictable
.If I apply Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to myself,which I can because I am the centre of my universe,then I could say that the more precise my position,the less precise is my momentum.This can lead me to sit on the fence and incur much more uncertainty than I actually need to grow and I end up falling off the fence.If I don't consciously make a choice it will be made for me.This reminds me of the story of a man driving down a road.At the next T-junction he was unable to decide whether to turn left or right,so... [View Full Comment]
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On May 21, 2019 Ruby(Triza Laxmi Aurora) wrote :
Curious? I was born curios with a a big question mark on my forehead about everything as behind that question mark, inside my brain was all empty, void of all knowledge, wisdom, and experiences. I took my first breath and cried to know everything to fill, or rather grow, that empty mind. Intuitively, I had this weird idea, as a kid, that girls had their vagina at the back. Don't laugh please. I had weird ideas about everything! That the world was not round, but countries were on top of each other, on flat lands. Aha, there I am! Having born on a tiny island in Fiji, in the southern hemisphere of our planet, my life had the best experience of things. What it felt like to play for my national soccer team against Australia, or to make my own bamboo raft to adventure in the sea alone between islands, and so on. Then. I moved to the northern hemisphere of our planet to experience life on the "other half" of my world. Life on a huge continent is also full of experiences, or, ma... [View Full Comment]
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On May 21, 2019 Marc wrote :
More recently, I've related to uncertainty with more uncertainty, followed by a fair amount of anxiety. Its a bit of a negative feedback loop in the sense it usually becomes more difficult for me to make decisions in the midst of the uncertainty, leading to more of the same, and usually more pronounced. Where this comes from, what causes this, what's at the roots of it, I'm not certain.. but I continue to be open to changing because living from that place is not a fun place to be, so I try to maintain faith and hope in the future, and a return to a time and place when there was peace, curiosity, and even joy in the midst of uncertainty.
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On May 21, 2019 Ashima Goyal wrote :
The message is so simple and yet so profound... to be curious and to listen more :-).
This passage reminded me of an email one my mentors had once sent me and I'm going to copy a part of it here. It helped me a lot in coming face to face with my own discomfort with 'not knowing'.
"Let us investigate how we cling to beingrightand instead open up to the freedom of being wrong, or at least not knowing. What? How could that be?? We don't tend to associate 'being wrong' with freedom, or anything good for that matter.
Here's what I mean.
When I ask myself "What has created a sense of separation in my own relationships?" - the answer has often been my attachment to my views. My own intense emotional investment in being right can lead me to be rigid and less empathic in how I interact. Being unattached to views doesn't mean you stop believing what you believe, or stop caring about what you care about. You simply release the tight fist of... [View Full Comment]
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On May 21, 2019 Albert wrote :
Thank you ðŸ™
. . . to create a community of curiosity
The Real Work
‘It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.’
~ Wendell Berry ~
. . . to create a community of curiosity
The Real Work
‘It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.’
~ Wendell Berry ~
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On May 20, 2019 Annelise Schinzinger wrote :
I appreciate Margaret Wheatley's encouragement to Listen more and be Curious. "We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone else believes." This kindles a desire to talk to people with very different views and try to understand where they are coming from, instead of simply discarding or categorizingwhat they say as bunk or rubbish. I am on my way to Europe and will have opportunities to be Open-minded and Curious. I've always enjoyed learning what makes people tick, and these are hot times we live in.
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On May 17, 2019 Rajesh wrote :
Fantastic passage. And some really good pointers for uncovering our own beliefs and assumptions, that drive our lives. The first paragraph is striking, especially this snippet - "We haven’t been rewarded for being confused. Or for asking more questions rather than giving quick answers. ".
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On May 17, 2019 Jagdish P Dave wrote :
I like this thought-provoking and very helpful essay by Margaret Wheatley. Mind-set like" Black or White" or "Either Or" or "My way is the only way and no other way" sadly closes doors for expanding ur consciousness. Getting stuck with such mindset not only confines us to the restrictive way of living in the "comfortable place of certainty" but also creates walls for us and between others for making significant changes in ourselves and others in important spheres of life. Fortunately living with open-minded families and friends I have been able to make a shift from narrow and close minded mind-set to more open and inclusive growth promoting mind-set. I know it is not that easy to move from the " comfortable place of certainty" to moving into the "uncomfortable place of uncertainty.". It is a slow and steady inner journey of transformation. I learned from Mahatma Gandhi's wise statement of learning how to remake our inner w... [View Full Comment]