From the author: An essay on the nature of irrational beliefs, published by me on my website and in the LiveJournal space. It’s amazing how thoughts expressed years, decades, many decades ago turn out to be insightful and vital at any current moment in time .Usually, this means that these thoughts simply touch on the real essence of things. Not some concocted logical concepts invented in selfish attempts to describe the world and its functioning in the desire to elevate oneself and one’s own authority, but thoughts born from observing life for people. Among such thoughts, among others, I include the works of Albert Ellis, an American psychotherapist and research psychologist, concerning our irrational ideas and beliefs, which for most people are the sources of most life problems and troubles. In short, Ellis, having accumulated many years of experience working with his patients, I came to the conclusion that with all the diversity of personal characteristics of people who turn to a psychotherapist for help, they are united by the presence of certain irrational beliefs, such simple life rules and laws, guided by which they live. I have already described the implementation of these irrational beliefs in life in some articles - https://www.b17.ru/article/456/, https://www.b17.ru/article/457/In this article I want to reflect on the topic certainty, stability and predictability in life. Thinking, using reason, logic, hemispheres (here, whoever prefers which definition is more) is generally a very useful thing. You switch from an emotional perception of life (which is not always reasonable and does not always lead to good decisions) to a more sensible logical one. When you begin to logically comprehend a situation, you involuntarily step away from it and get the opportunity to see both the situation and yourself in it from the outside. And all this, as a rule, makes it possible to come to the right decision and find a good way out for yourself. This is what I think about in my articles. Initially - for yourself. And then, you see, it turns out to be useful for someone else. Many of us, either from an early age, having learned from our parents, or independently in the process of living life, come to some belief that says: “Uncertain or dangerous events in life should be avoided or feared.” In essence, this is the illusion that all life events can be predicted, predicted, controlled and subject to one’s influence. That life should be measured, predictable, insured against risks and devoid of uncertainties. But then, when she is like this, the long-awaited and longed-for happiness will come, of course. Accordingly, everything that brings uncertainty, risk, chaos into life, even somewhere, a share of danger, should be excluded from life. It is not always possible, however, to completely eliminate this uncertainty and danger from life. They still happen one way or another - after all, a person only assumes, as we know. The emotional companion of all these events in the human soul is anxiety, so familiar to many of us. Most often, it is presented in the form of those very disturbing thoughts about possible future events, which either interfere with relaxation, or, on the contrary, concentrate, or do not allow a person to be natural and spontaneous when it is really important (the same date, for example), and then they don’t let you sleep for a long time. The list of all these thoughts is endless and inexhaustible - there are so many people, so many troubling fears. But, nevertheless, there are some things common to everyone: “It could happen,” “It can’t get out of my head,” “I can’t allow this to happen,” “It’s easy to say - relax!!!” , “How can you be completely sure that this won’t happen??!!”, “I can’t even think about anything else but this!”, “Apparently you all don’t understand how serious this is”, well and a number of others. What, in fact, is behind all these thoughts and anxieties? An irreconcilable demand for certainty from life.A person, worrying and worrying about possible dangers and uncertain prospects for the future, seems to require some guarantees that everything will be exactly as he expects, plans, and assumes. After all, an irrational belief learned earlier in life (maybe in childhood, adolescence, or a little later - that’s not the point) says: “Certainty and security in life are good. But uncertainty and danger are bad. Therefore, we must avoid them at all costs.” But rules are rules, and reality is reality. People make up the rules, but the real state of things just happens. It just happens and it just happens. And the reality is that no one ever promised a person that his life would be endowed with unconditional certainty. Nobody gave anyone guarantees of predictability and safety of life. This belief is not based on anything - we invented it for ourselves. It is impossible to predict life, and it is impossible to protect yourself from the uncertainty in life. But, after all, this conviction should have some effect on our lives? Of course, it also has a very serious effect. At a minimum, in this struggle with uncertainty, in this constant avoidance of dangers and risks, we simply get upset. Moreover, we are upset about those events that are not yet in sight. We are upset about a reality that does not yet exist, but is only possible in one of the perspectives of reality. The main emotional background of all these disorders regarding something that has not yet happened is alarming. Initially, it seems, this truth, this irrational belief described above, was intended to protect us from something, to cover us, to secure us. It’s like in early childhood, when a child is playing in the sandbox and suddenly rushes beyond its boundaries, the mother is worried about her child and shouts to him: “Don’t go there, he might get hit by a car/bitten by a dog/taken away by someone else’s uncle/substitute something yours!!” And at that particular moment in the past, this desire to avoid the risks and uncertainties of life makes perfect sense. But, continuing to exist in our already adult and independent life (and independence presupposes full responsibility for oneself), this belief leads to the fact that for the rest of our lives we simply do not live, but only fear. And through this belief we limit ourselves in the hope of protecting ourselves. We ourselves and only ourselves put ourselves in a mental prison, avoiding the dangers and uncertainty of life. By and large, it is normal to experience a certain amount of fear when thinking about the future. This is common to all people to one degree or another. Another question is how a person will behave when experiencing this fear. Many people rush around with various activities that indirectly reduce feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. The same trips to fortune tellers who will tell a person what, when and where awaits him in the future. I don’t presume to judge everyone, but very often such predictions become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, when a person unconsciously realizes all the details of the “prediction”, acting and acting in a strictly defined way. And for many people, turning to psychologists and psychotherapists also aims to predict and subordinate life to their expectations. But life cannot be subdued - it does not consist of changes. As the Indian mystic Osho Rajneesh wrote: “Change is the very fabric of life.” From my point of view, what a psychotherapist can help with is to help a person accept the uncertainty of life, learn to coexist peacefully and calmly with it. Because most of the events in our lives are, by definition, irrational. They often do not happen according to any deliberate plan, but simply happen. Events just happen. Both uncertainty and anxiety (not going beyond imaginable limits, of course) are a powerful resource. A resource that can push a person to new actions, to important changes, to timely decisions. A resource that allows you not to sit still, but to take responsibility for your life into your own hands. Trying to think it through and calculate it. Predetermine subsequent.