What You Don’t Know

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth . . . than are dreamt of in your           philosophy.”          (From, “Hamlet”, by William Shakespeare)

We have become used to asking our cellular devices for answers to just about any question we might have.  If not, you can always Google it.  Most of us human beings are curious  creatures.  Most of us want to know what is going to be happening next, and exactly when; especially if it has to do with our jobs, our relationships, or our finances.  That is why the annual revenue from the Telephone Psychic industry is over 2 billion dollars, with an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent.  (You just got free investment advice!)  And that does not include the billions that people spend annually on face-to-face psychic readings.   Yep, we are pretty curious creatures, and want to know the future.

Trouble is, we really can’t know everything.  It can drive you crazy (literally) if you just have to know your future in every detail, but then find out (as we All do) that things do change and can go in a direction that you and your psychic could not have predicted.  That is why people who have “faith” (basically defined as, “just knowing that everything is going to ultimately work out for the best, regardless of what is currently happening”) are people who, according to research, have a significantly lower rate of anxiety disorders and depression than the general population.

Accepting the fact that humans cannot know everything is the first step toward having faith.  Of course, then you need to have something in which you can place your faith  Or, to put it more simply (though grammatically incorrect) you need something to put your faith in.  For most of us that is a Higher Power/God/Spirit.

This does not mean that we should not have goals, dreams, or aspirations in life.  In fact, it means the opposite of that.  We just need to place our inner-most, soul-driven passions and dreams in the realm of faith, and not try to figure out exactly when and how our passions in life are going to come to pass.  So often, we become tripped up on our road to fulfilling our dreams by trying to figure out exactly how they are going to be realized; and certainly being tripped up by roadblocks to our dreams.  The “how” is often far beyond our human knowledge, especially after a setback.  Setbacks, and not being able to see a way out can cause you to give up on your dreams.  Please don’t let that happen to you.

My best go-to illustration of not giving up though seeing no way out of a hopeless situation is when I was 11 years old, brain-dead from a landslide, and finally unplugged from life-support, left to die.  But then, 9 months later I managed to complete the 6th grade in a school for gifted children, after taking a cruise to Hawaii.  Go figure.  No one knew how I was going to get from brain-dead (some still insist that I actually am) and unplugged from life-support, to a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology.  But, my family just knew that it was going to happen.  They had prayed and believed that I would awaken from the coma before being unplugged from life-support; but even though that did not happen, they stood strong in their faith as they stood by my bed with nurses weeping and waiting for the life to drain out of my body.  During all of that drama, my parents were booking a cruise to Hawaii (my birthplace).

So, whatever your dream is, whether it is to be a succesful _________ , or to just no longer be brain-dead, hold onto your God-given dreams and passions regardless of current circumstances.  You don’t have to figure out the whole plan, or how or when it is going to happen, even after a setback.  Have faith.

Christopher Knippers, Ph.D.                                              March 1, 2017