Life Is Uncertain, Unpredictable. How Do I Remain at Peace?

Questioner: Namaste, Acharya Ji. I've been pondering over this for a while now; how does one deal with uncertainty and I'll tell you where I'm coming from. Over the course of my life, I have changed the streams, whether it is my occupation. I mean, I've jumped from field to field to field, and there has been no clear set linear path. Not that, that the linear path is a problem; I mean, I'm not seeking a linear path, but the uncertainty that comes with it, that what is coming next, has always left me a little worried and anxious. At the same time, I think this is, since I'm at this stage in life, perhaps my worries are majorly related to career, but even otherwise, I have felt that, even when it comes to family, when it comes to my friendships, relationships, everything, there have been so many kinds of uncertainties. So how could one deal with them, and how does one put oneself at peace with all of the uncertainty?

Acharya Prashant: See, the problem is not that life is uncertain; what makes us suffer is that we try to look for certainty where it just cannot exist, and that's a very unrealistic expectation, is it not? The world around is a flowing mass; it's a flux. They have said, “it's a stream of time, where every nanosecond, everything is changing. So much so that it's not very proper to even say that things exist because, for a thing to exist, it must have stability, continuity, and unchangeability, even for half a second.” Well, nothing remains the same even for a split second, even for the millionth portion of a second. And that has to be realized, in that realization is acceptance.