When You Don’t Have Answers

by Britta Reque-Dragicevic

This first appeared in Britta’s blog, “Life After War” on June 30, 2013 and is republished with the author’s permission.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to know where we are in life, to have answers, to see a clear path and walk on it. Society holds that expectation over us. If you’re an adult, it’s pretty much a given that you’re supposed to be in control of your life, right? You’re supposed to know who you are and where you’re going.

But what if you don’t?

Veterans who come home from war often don’t know who they are now or where they’re going.
Society gives you a few months to get on with it. After that, if you’re still uncertain, they start labeling you.

This added pressure and judgement only slathers on another layer of misunderstanding.  Let me tell you this: there’s nothing wrong with you if you need more time to figure things out.

There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t know.

Give yourself permission to “not know” the path, the answers, who you are now or want to be. It’s hard to do – hard to let go of our need to appear to be in control – but if you take that pressure off yourself and intentionally give yourself permission to not know, you open yourself up to new possibilities. You allow yourself to be who you are right now, today.  Accepting that you “don’t know” gives your spirit space to open to a “new knowing.”

So let go. Push away from the shore. Set sail in this unfamiliar sea and trust that in your blindness now, you will eventually behold your destination.

“One doesn’t discover new lands, without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” – Andre Gide.

Consent. And trust. A new shore awaits.

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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.