Ever get stopped in your tracks by things that don’t fit into your neatly organized file called “How My Life Will Work Out”? Of course you do. We all do. We get sick. We lose people. Our hearts break. Read these uncertainty quotes to remember: even if your plans go rogue, you can still be in awe of the miracle that is YOU and your life.

“The basis of your life is absolute freedom, the goal is joy, and the result of that perfect combination is motion forward, or growth.” — Abraham-Hicks

If freedom is the basis of this life experience and joy is the objective, growth seems like a natural next step. 

How rare and beautiful this life experience is. How complex and confusing it can be. Luckily, we’re not here to figure everything out. We are here to live—to live everything.

It seems strange to write this, but I think the meaning of life is LIFE. Not perfection, but maybe presence. Not amassing piles of stuff, but expanding our experience.

Maybe we’re meant to feel every single feeling we feel. Maybe we’re meant to face every trial, celebrate every triumph, sit with every heartache, grow from every lesson, cry every tear… live every moment to the best of our ability.

Allow yourself to be alive as you are right now, while you’re here, learning how to live. If you did—and I hope some of these uncertainty quotes help you do that—wouldn’t you be able to breathe a little easier, knowing you’re meant to be here?

You’re meant to be here.

Life is for living, and if you’re still here, you’re still meant to be here—like, right here. Not off galavanting in the territory of Knowing, having it all figured out—just right here, right now, for now.

To get anywhere else, you need to start here. To know what it’s like to rise up again, you need to know what it’s like to fall down in the first place.

I know it can all sound a bit cliche, but, hey, sometimes it’s just true and we forget about the power of simplicity. We get stricken with anxiety and hopelessness because everything just seems too impossible and big, but what we need is to go back to something simple.

You may not be exactly where you want to be, but you’re not where you used to be. And you can live this part of your journey as fully, vibrantly, and gratefully as possible. That’s how you uncover freedom and joy, and that is how you grow.

We can handle a lot more of the “unknown” than we think we can.

Even if you’re waiting, you can wait with purpose. Even though you may not know what your purpose is, you can be willing to find out. Even when this season is uncomfortable, you can have a greater reverence for the fact that every season serves its own purpose.

Here’s a gathering of uncertainty quotes to reacquaint you with the pulse of this moment—the one that matters most—and how you can serve your purpose of experiencing the LIFE you came to live.

15 Uncertainty Quotes for Inner Stability in an Unstable World

1. “Looking deeper, we could say that the real cause of suffering is not being able to tolerate uncertainty—and thinking that it’s perfectly sane, perfectly normal, to deny the fundamental groundlessness of being human.” — Pema Chödrön

2. “True security lies in the unrestrained embrace of insecurity — in the recognition that we never really stand on solid ground, and never can.” — Oliver Burkeman

3. “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. It wasn’t always a choice; we were born curious. But over time, we learn that curiosity, like vulnerability, can lead to hurt. As a result, we turn to self-protecting—choosing certainty over curiosity, armor over vulnerability, and knowing over learning.” — Brené Brown

2. “It is not how we live in the light that enlightens us, it is how we live in the dark.” — Rune Lazuli

5. “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” — Albus Dumbledore 

6. “If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.” — Eckhart Tolle

7. “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity. ” — Gilda Radner

8. "Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.” — Pema Chödrön

9. “Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of Not Knowing. Give your questions time to breathe. And the answers will find you.” — Jeff Foster

10. “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

11. “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our own light.” — Brené Brown

12. “Trusting that there is a next step is the first step to figuring out what the next step is.” — Jennifer Williamson

13. “Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.” — Eckhart Tolle

14. “Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” — Bob Goff

15. “I am learning to trust the journey even when I do not understand it.” — Mila Bron

. . .

Tell me:

Which of these quotes is your favorite? 

Tell me in the comments. I read every single one, and I'd love to know!

You can handle a lot more “unknown” than you think you can.

With love,

Jen

P.S. Wake up with joy, hope, and purpose beating in your heart every single morning. Get my book Morning Affirmations for a season full of wonder, no matter what happens.