You Don’t Need to Know Everything

A letter for the uncertain ones

There’s something under the surface lately.

It doesn’t feel quite like panic. Not yet crisis. Just a quiet disorientation.

People are still showing up. Still doing what needs to be done.

But inwardly, something has gone still. Something has gone… undefined.

If you’re reading this, maybe you’re somewhere in the in-between.

Not broken, not lost. Just not certain. About who you are. Where we’re headed. What anything means right now.

I’ve been there too. A lot recently. And somewhere in that fog, I wrote this:

There is no certainty. And if there were, there would be no potential.

Why We Crave Certainty

We’re trained to seek certainty like it’s a destination. As if finding the answer will finally bring peace. As if not knowing means we’ve failed.

But what if that’s never been true?

Certainty promises safety, but it often delivers rigidity. It shuts down possibility. It says: This is how it is. Everything else is wrong. And in doing so, it leaves no space to grow. No space to be surprised. No space to be remade.

That’s the problem:

Certainty collapses the field. And when there’s no potential left, nothing can become.

The Universe Doesn’t Need You to Be Sure

In quantum physics, there’s a concept that particles don’t exist in a single state until they’re observed. Until that moment, they hover in multiple possibilities.

They wait to become.

Potential is the natural state of the universe.

Ram Dass said it this way:

“The game is not about becoming somebody, it’s about becoming nobody.”

Nobody is not nihilism.
Nobody is the space before performance.
Before role. Before story. Before knowing.
It’s where everything is still possible.

Living in the Field of Becoming

When I stopped chasing certainty, the world stopped feeling like a puzzle to solve. It began to feel like a conversation. One that reveals itself slowly, if I’m willing to stay present.

Conversations are alive. They shift. They surprise. They ask me to listen more than control.

And I realized:

I don’t need to know everything. I just need to know what’s true for me right now.

Local Certainty, Global Mystery

There’s a difference between absolute certainty and what I’ve come to call localized clarity.

Not “This is how life works.”

But “This is what I know to be true, here, in this moment.”

That’s enough.

That’s a kind of truth that doesn’t pretend to be permanent. It doesn’t need to.

We don’t have to light the entire forest to keep walking. We just need to see where our feet are.

The Self as Ground

Here’s another thing I keep returning to. Quietly. Inwardly.

Maybe the only real certainty is that I exist.

Not as an identity. Not as a title or a role. Just… as presence. As awareness.

I am.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says:

“I am the Self, seated in the heart of all beings.” (10.20)

The Self isn’t something you build. It’s not your job. Not your thoughts. It’s the you that watches. That breathes. That remains.

That is certainty — not about what will happen, but about what is.

Agency in the Present, Mystery in the Future

So what do we do with that?

If we accept that the future is unknowable — does that mean we stop trying?

Not at all.

There may be no certainty about the future. But there is agency in the present.

And that’s everything.

We still choose. We still act. We still care deeply about what we do with our time, our attention, our energy.

But we act from the present — not from the illusion of control.
We act with intention — without demanding a guarantee.

The present will shape the future, but not by skipping itself in search of it.

That’s the paradox:

We hold the future lightly while living the present on purpose.

This is a sacred kind of strength. Not the strength of knowing, but the strength of choosing to show up anyway.

The Devotional Way of Not Knowing

This is why I lean toward devotion.

Not because it gives me answers. But because it offers relationship. With the unknown. With the unfolding. With the divine, whatever that means to you.

In the Gita again:

“Offer every act to me.” (9.27)
“Let your mind rest in me.” (12.8)

Even the not-knowing can be offered. Even your uncertainty is sacred.

A Reflection for the Uncertain Ones

If you’re standing in that soft, foggy place —
if clarity feels far and everything feels paused —
you’re not failing.
You’re not falling apart. You’re falling into place.

You’re becoming.

So here’s a question to carry with you:

What feels true for you, just for today?

Not forever.
Just now.

That’s your solid ground.
That’s where the next step begins.

You don’t need to know the whole story.
You only need to keep listening.