Sunday, June 1, 2008

The Known versus the Unknown

Most of us have a thrist for the known or at least take comfort in the known, while we are afraid of the unknown. If you sat back and thought about it, it should be the exact opposite.

Let's look at the "known" first. The 'Known" is everything that has either already happened or information you have intellictualized.........so its the past, and is the stuff that your beliefs are made of.........experience and knowledge shape your beliefs..............and so what if your perception of the past experience or the knowledge you have intellectualized is just not accurate? Well, you are operating from beliefs that are not accurate, and more importantly they are confining in that they do not allow for alternative thinking. After all what we know is very comforting and changing to something unknown is very distressing for most of us.

Now, take the "Unknown". The "Unknown" is infinite possibilities that are just awaiting you and I to enact them. They (the infinite possibilities) exist in the successive moments that make up the Now and shape the future. But if we are not comfortable with the "Unknown" and comfortable with the "Known" what do we get in the future?...........more of the known!!!!! How freakin boring is that?

The conditioned thinking and behavior most of us spend so much time "re-acting" in is derived fromt the "Known". Reacting, think about that word...........Re-acting........meaning re-acting behavior or thinking (thought actually, because your just rehashing previous thinking) that you have used before, and in many cases behavior or thought that was just not very effective the last time we used it..........so why re-act it? Conditioned thinking!!!

Rather than fearing the unknown, we should embrace it, look at it for what it is............pure infinite potential...........the unknown is where innovation, creativity, wisdom all reside. The Unknown is where ultimate potential resides. The Unknown is beyond right or wrong, or judgement.

Whenever I have a coaching session with another person, the first thing I do is clear my head of any preconcieved notion of what I want to accomplish, I suspend any idea of how I would like for the conversation to go.........My only agenda is to be open to what will emerge during the dialogue. When I can do that, I learn as much about myself as I do about the other person.

Make the "Unknown" an adventure into the infinite possibilities that you always have access to and watch how much fun you have in changing yourself and changing the world..........one moment at a time.