Why We Deeply Desire a Mixture of Both Certainty and Spontaneity

As it turns out, variety is actually the spice of life.

Photo by Tamara Bellis on Unsplash

Michael’s craft store was the last place I expected to find the answer to my biggest existential question.

I was newly single, job hunting, pondering my life’s purpose, and feeling lost under the weight of the world and my broken heart. The question that swirled nearly every waking hour — what to do next?

Back in the store, a display of large, rustic letters and symbols filled an aisle. Naturally drawn to my initials, then almost unconsciously to the initials of my ex, I rummaged through the stacks. I came across several symbols: a star and a heart, followed by the ampersand.

I vividly remember the prickly sensation of extreme presence in my body as I picked up the abbreviated symbol for the word and. Uncomfortable with the blatant message, I quickly looked back at my initials, but something nudged me toward the more significant meaning of the ampersand.

Answering The Universal Questions

As we seek answers to the most pressing questions of our lives, the unexpected, simple moments of silence often provide the richest rewards.

What should I do? Who should I do it with? How do I be happy?

And more practical questions of: Where should I work? Where do I want to live? And how do I wanna spend my time?

Life is messy, imperfect, and chaotic at times. And with an overwhelming amount of inputs and influences, it’s hard to know what we really want and even harder to know which path will lead us to this achievement.

We all yearn for the comforts of certainty. Whether knowing we have a safe place to sleep, a reliable car to drive, a paycheck coming in two weeks, or a partner who loves us, our fundamental human needs are to feel safe and secure.

We also crave variety, spontaneity, freedom, and ease. This is why when the weekend rolls around, we eat out, stay up later, sleep in longer, and take a break from the monotony of our weekday routines.

These natural, biological cravings for a mixture of structure and spontaneity, stability and freedom, safety and silliness keep us energized. To live a well-balanced, integrated life, we absolutely need both.

And yet, I hear from so many people how they feel cultural and societal pressures to give up their dreams, aspirations, and passionate hobbies in service of maintaining a good job, raising children, managing a home, caring for loved ones, or all of the above.

They feel, consciously or maybe even unconsciously, forced to choose themselves or the ones they love. And, decide their wants and needs can take a back seat.

Well-intentioned at the time, these choices cut them off from vital elements that tend to come back around as resentments, lack of fulfillment, and baby monsters of frustration that grow up to be destructive and divisive.

What Happens When We Ignore It and Conform?

When we’re held to a tight schedule, to a constant slew of tasks with questionable meaning, and a never-ending to-do list, the desperate yearning for freedom clashes with our need for certainty, and painful internal warfare erupts.

The Great Resignation and its fallout are prime examples of this in action. The vast majority of people that quit their jobs over the past two years cite mental health purposes.

With lockdowns, prolonged quarantines, and a worldwide death toll in the millions, folks desperate to reclaim their agency and livelihood walked away from their greatest source of security as well as their greatest source of stress — their job.

The breakpoint was likely brewing for quite some time. However, chronic workplace unhappiness, compounded by unforeseen amounts of prolonged uncertainty, coupled with extreme levels of isolation, people looked for a way out, and something had to give.

When we get too much of nearly anything, it loses its luster, and we long for the opposite. We may have a consistently healthy diet, yet cravings for sweets or salty snacks arise. If we have friends visit for a week, we’ll yearn for our routine and alone time.

The challenge arises when rigidity creeps in. When our routines become monotonous and mundane. If we don’t pause and recognize our innate needs for variety and flexibility, we get bitter and short-tempered and begin to collect evidence of wrongdoing from those closest to us.

We fantasize about tossing our smartphones off a cliff, ditching our over-stuffed schedules and running away, or starting over with a clean slate.

It’s human nature to have desires for both familiarity as well as newness. Our souls simply long for unstructured variations of life experience.

When You Need a Life Line

As I held the oversized ampersand in my hands that afternoon, what came to me was the crystal clear guidance of embracing the lifestyle of “and.”

Meaning adhere to my wants and needs for certainty, security, and structure and also cultivate facets of uncertainty, spontaneity, freedom, and free-flow creativity.

Do both.

For example, have a few hours of focused productivity and then go for a walk. Play with your kids and then call a friend to relish in an adult conversation. Eat a healthy diet most days and enjoy a scoop of ice cream every once in a while. Tackle your to-do list like a champion, and also take time to f**k off.

Both are essential aspects to cultivate and maintain a happy, thriving life force. Because a life of consistent rigidity — of time stress, too many tasks, constraints, and obligations, becomes a dull gray prison of existence.

The good news is only you hold the key. Taking radical responsibility for your life is the most powerful resource you can access. You don’t need anyone’s permission to reclaim your personal agency.

And as potentially terrifying as that sounds, it’s simply not healthy or mature to play the victim or place blame.

However, If you’re stuck in a daunting loop of habits and routines that are no longer serving you, you’re not alone. Help is available and also widely accessible. Schedule a consultation with a therapist or coach. Many times, the initial conversation is free.

Recognizing and expressing our wants and needs is often not simple or easy. Until the ultimate instigator of pain arises, we tend to do what’s familiar and may even sleepwalk through our days.

A quote from John Bowlby comes to mind,

We’re only as needy as our unmet needs.

I get it. Free will can be frustrating. I certainly go through bouts of robotic tasks and decision fatigue.

And yet, if you’re living a life with mounting levels of anxiety and dissatisfaction, what do you really have to lose?

We’re never one thing. We are always both, and.

. . .

Rebecca Murauskas is a Life Coach for professionals. She helps people be free of stress and overwhelm, reclaim their purpose, and feel fulfilled. Rebecca and her husband, Adam, abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take the free Time Saver Quiz and find additional content at RebeccaMurauskas.com.