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3 I The Best Online Education System in the world
LIVING WITH UNCERTAINTY
Kathlyn Q. Barrozo
Class of 1991, University of Santo Tomas
B.S. Medical Technology
Life is full of uncertainties. We might get up each and every day with concrete plans and strategies on how our
entire day will go, but somehow, somewhere, there’s always a Murphy’s law that could easily place us in
moments of doubt, moments of asking. We employ mobile devices to keep track of certain milestones or
events in our lives, yet who is to say that we will ever reach those milestones or get to those events? Planners
and organizers don’t work when everything else has gone wrong. In such cases, all we end up is a reminder of
what could have been. Pen on paper, graphics on LCD. What’s the certainty in that?
We might have the best careers at present. We share laughs with colleagues we have come to love and share
our busiest moments with the people we serve or the masters we work for. But who is to say that our jobs will
continue to be stalwart incarnations of our dreams and ambitions? Who is to say that the industries we work in
will not fold up five, ten or twenty years from now? With the way one successful business enterprise can
spawn a wealth of copycats and wannabe’s, the next year might very well be the last.
This is precisely why strategists and planners make a lot of money. They take the speculative aspects of
anything and readily turn them to easily workable, seemingly concrete solutions that can work in the future.
They have a host of tools and devices to do such: financial planners have financial modeling software; wedding
planners have a network of contacts that assist them in all eventualities; advisors employ a battery of
technological procedures to examine and scrutinize in the best ways possible whether something will work and
where it is bound to fail.
Wow, how I personally wish I had a crystal ball so I would know how much longer I can be of service to my
children, or how much longer I can enjoy doing what I’ve been doing. But on second thought, what if I had the
certainty of knowing what lies next at the other end of the road? Wouldn’t that debase the genuine pleasure
that I have felt for each significant milestone, or take away the fun out of not knowing well ahead in advance?
The only weapon we have in an uncertain world is faith. We may not have the technology to see the future and
become certain of our actions. But it is precisely our strong belief and faith in ourselves that we can rely on to
see us through even the most uncertain of times. Be certain of your faith, even if your fate faces much
uncertainty.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1.
What are your greatest sources of uncertainty in life? Why do you consider them so?
2.
How certain are you of your future success?
3.
How do you deal with an uncertain future? Your uncertainties in life?
4.
How do you feel when something you are certain of fails to materialize? How do you deal with such a
situation?
5.
Define faith. What makes it special?