There is something so comforting about patterns and routines. Steps taken before others to accomplish a task is a measured form of success. Familiar places and practices ingrain safety and reassurance during our busiest days. To broaden the scope from days to weeks to years, having a mapped out future is calming. Just like knowing how to get from point A to point B creates a smooth journey. But repetition and trite experiences do not push you to grow in the grand scheme of things. You have to put yourself out there to see how far you could go. It is a capacity experiment: what can you do with the situation you are given and how can you go even farther. In other words, you do not know the extent of your jump if you have never jumped before. Sometimes we get so obsessed with planning events and calculating benchmarks down to the minute that we forget the value of the whole experience. It becomes a burdened checklist, rather than a highlight.
I have about 10 months of a great unknown. From birth to forty weeks, I was the only constant person who was with me. Being a natural born product of the One-Child-Policy in the late 1990s, I got to start out life by myself. I have no concrete information about the day I was born, including insight into my birth parents. There are minimal facts about my hometown origins and cultural characteristics. But there is so much serenity that fills those 10 months for me. When I was younger, I would have done anything to know something. However, now, I have realized I do not want to know. Not because I am afraid of what my past might say or how it will affect me, but because the unknown of all of it keeps it simple. There are an abundant amount of questions with seemingly little to none answers and when the questions stop, then it is peaceful.
I think that we forget to remember to get excited about the unknown. The stigma of it all is to make sure there are the fewest surprises and the most preparedness when it comes to a possible unforeseen circumstance. But we should get exhilarated at a view with a big unknown. On a small scale, I bet you wish you could rewatch your favorite Netflix show again for the first time. Or that you could reread your favorite book from the very beginning. The storytelling was more important than physically finishing the movie or book. It is just the same in life. It is okay to not know the ins-and-outs and small details while believing that everything will fall in place in the end.
So just as you debate whether you want to apply for a new job, move to a city across the country, change the rough-draft sketch of your life plan, walk off the path you have taken forever, or simply follow happiness into different terrain, just remember that there is something so beautiful about the unknown. And in the end, it will all make sense.
