Today, we are in a situation where the whole world is faced with a pandemic. As a practicing psychiatrist, I see patients who are stricken by panic and depression day in and day out. As the situation continues to worsen, so does the anxiety in my patients, who constantly ask for medications to numb the emotional pain. In this dire situation, I am moved to consider what’s underneath this rush of neurochemicals that generate a heightened sense of worry?
As I look outside the window at the empty roads, I am reminded of the looming fear that every human being on this planet is probably experiencing at this time. Nothing is certain today. As our newly formed obsessions, we are repeatedly reading updates on our phone, monitoring trends of the number of people falling sick and dying with the infection. But the issue remains: uncertainty.
This word provokes a sense of deep anxiety and triggers a natural impulse to try to escape. As I sit socially isolated with my own thoughts, I ponder on the very nature of uncertainty. It’s a thief that robs us of our sense of security, and sense of control. In the process, it often takes away the joy of daily living, and nags our subconscious. It blows the roof off the house we have built, brick by brick, threatening to destroy the house itself.
Since time immemorial, human behavior is geared towards limiting uncertainty and securing the environment we live in. On an individual level, buying insurance so that we are protected, investing money to save for the future, getting married and having children that can look after us once we grow old, and many more examples of efforts to minimize uncertainty and to live a secure life.
As a privileged person in the United States, I see that people often live long, prosperous lives, free from the calamity of poverty and war. I often forget that for many of those in less developed countries however, uncertainty is a more familiar guest. This makes me wonder if a disaster like this does indeed make things uncertain or does it reveal the uncertainty which already existed?
We struggle and plan every day trying to cover up that fear of losing our health, wealth and happiness, but now we stand equal, facing an enormous monster that is not deterred by any amount of financial or social security.
Life, by its very nature, is uncertain, no matter what we do to bend it to our whims and desires. This is often revealed to us through small events which shock our plans and make us examine our life. But it takes something at the level of a global pandemic, a killing machine, to really overwhelm our shock absorbers, and consider what uncertainty really means.
Many of us have never faced a threat of this magnitude, and thus never considered this question. When there is war, it is always others who are fighting, and when there is poverty, it is always others who are struggling. This is the first time, at least in my life, where it is not the others, but my own self, and my family, who is threatened. I feel helpless and have lost the illusion of control.
As I peel through the mental layers of resistance to this uncomfortable concept, I am compelled to ponder a new approach to life. In the lap of peace and comfort, when things go according to plan, one often forgets to examine more deeply where the true, fulfilling answers lie. The opium of the mind-created reality numbs us to the truth. Guru Nanak Dev Ji teaches us that, “dukh daaroo sukh rog bhayaa”, that pain and suffering are the medicine and temporary peace and pleasure the disease.
So how do we deal with this situation? Uncertainty leaves us with two options: the first to live in mental turmoil and anguish as we ponder the endless bad outcomes, and the ways in which the world as we know it is going to end. The second, is that of acceptance. What is acceptance? It is letting go of the torment of our constant mental chatter and allowing things to be. This is not complacency or an ignorance of reality, but a deep recognition that life, no matter how certain it may seem, does not go according to our plan. It is the humility to say: “Thy will be done.”
Guru Nanak Dev JI said it beautifully in Jap(u) Ji sahib – “Hukam Rajaee Chalna, Nanak LIkhiya Naal” – O Nanak, it is written, that you shall walk in tune with the Will of God. And in these stressful times, it is perhaps one of the only ways in which we can maintain our sanity.