The Certainty of Nothing

ByMatthew

“What I’ve experienced is that I can’t know the future. I can’t know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can’t know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change.” – James Orbinski

This is true, rather bleak and incredibly inspiring. I know what you’re (likely) saying: “it can be the first, and one of the latter, but it can’t be all three.”

It’s almost as if each sentence tracks with my three suppositions (that it’s true, rather bleak and incredibly inspiring).

Let’s go through them one-by-one:

“It’s true.” This one’s easy, there’s – to my mind – not much to argue here. (So I won’t try… )

It’s “rather bleak.” I will concede that Orbinksi (a former president of Doctors Without Borders) is a bit of a bummer when he says he can neither know the future, nor change what happens tomorrow. But he’s right.

And finally, he’s “incredibly inspiring;” or at least I think so. These words inspire me because they mince no words in explaining what needs to happen for me to create my future, to have a significant influence on achieving my goals and ensuring a decent-to-amazing quality-of-life.

Put another way, he points out the certainty of nothing: that if we do nothing, nothing will change. (In fact, things will likely change, and for the worse, even if only slightly, if we do “nothing.”)

So, what are you going to do to change your world for the better?

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