As human beings, we are eager to get answers, to get the so-called ‘moral of the story’. We dread uncertainty and become insecure from a lack of reference points. “ I just want to know”, we say to ourselves and our friends, when we’re in a situation that provide no such quick answers. I can feel this need for resolution roaming through my veins like a fever when I am unresolved about something. Yet paradoxically, we spend the largest part of our lives in this no-man’s land, not here and not there; in uncertainty. I consider this is one of the biggest psychological or spiritual challenge we face as human beings.

 It helps to know that truthfully, we don’t need closed endings. Life is made bigger with open endings. When we dedicate ourselves to open endings, we are in for lifelong surprises both good and bad.   When we are only chasing answers, when we always need to know the moral of the story, when we cannot appreciate a book or movie that leaves us uncomfortably unresolved, we are cheating ourselves. We don’t deserve closed endings, we deserve open ones. We deserve  unexplored landscapes luring behind our visible horizon, friends and lovers that are eating breakfast right now without any clue that you will change each other’s future lives, drama’s and thrills that will shake us to the bones. It takes some courage, but the open end truly is The Real Deal.  Uncertainty becomes the small price that we gladly pay.

Another reasons ‘why the road bends’, as Iyanla Vanzant puts it, is because to face the events of our lives straight on would simply be too much. It would break our heart, either from pain or bliss, or more likely; a lethal combination of both. So don’t rush toward your answers to eagerly. Especially when you have one desired outcome.  “When God wants to punish you”, Isak Dinesen says, “He answers your prayers.” Embracing your open endings may just be your saving grace.