Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
When You Embrace Uncertainty, Life Becomes Easier – Michel de Montaigne | Psyphoria | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: When You Embrace Uncertainty, Life Becomes Easier – Michel de Montaigne
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
The core theme is that true peace and freedom come not from seeking control and certainty, but from embracing uncertainty, accepting our human imperfections, and learning to live with the natural flow of life, as exemplified by the wisdom of Michel de Montaigne.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Have you ever stopped to think about how
much of your anguish comes from your
obsession with control? No, I'm not just
talking about external control, work,
bills, routine, but internal control.
The suffocating need for certainties to
know what will happen tomorrow. To
perfectly understand who you are, what
you want, where you're going. Society
has taught you to seek definitive
answers as if life were a mathematical
equation. But the truth, the truth that
few have the courage to face, is that
this obsession with certainty distances
you from what you desire most, peace.
Perhaps you are tired, exhausted from
trying to predict the
unpredictable, from crafting perfect
plans that crumble at the slightest
breath of
chance. Maybe you are living in the
limbo of anxiety, where every
uncertainty becomes a threat, where the
unknown seems like an enemy to be
defeated. But what if the problem isn't
the uncertainty?
What if the real poison is your refusal
to accept it? Michelle de Montaigne, a
French thinker from the 16th century,
understood this before any of us. While
the world around him sought dogmas,
absolute truths, closed systems, he did
something rare. He looked inward. He
observed his own mind, his fears, his
inconsistencies, and dared to write
about all of it with brutal honesty. Not
as someone who has the answers, but as
someone who learned to live better with
the questions. And that's what you need
now. No more certainties, but a new
relationship with what cannot be
controlled. In this video, I want to
propose a different path, a lighter and
much braver way to face life. I want to
show you through Montaigne's wisdom that
when you stop resisting the unknown,
something changes. Anxiety loses its
grip. Pressures diminish. And for the
first time in a long time, life begins
to seem simpler. But be careful. This
simplicity doesn't come from the
outside. It's not a change in the world.
It's an internal revolution. And it
starts now when you decide to let go. to
abandon the illusion of control and to
walk with me not towards answers but
towards a new way of being in the world.
Are you ready? Because this journey
unlike anything you've been taught
begins with a single phrase. I don't
okay. Monteneg was not an ordinary
philosopher. He did not ascend to
pulpits, create complex systems, or try
to force the world into rational
formulas. He wrote from within his own
skin. Sitting in his library, surrounded
by books and silence, Michelle de
Montaigne decided to investigate the
most unstable and mysterious object that
exists, himself. His texts are not
treatices, they are mirrors. He did not
write to convince you but to invite you
to think to doubt to question to look
within yourself without fear or rather
despite the fear. Unlike other thinkers
who sought universal truths, Montaigne
embraced the opposite. He did not know.
And the more he lived, the more he
realized that knowing little about the
world and even less about himself was
not a flaw. It was a rare wisdom.
Curses, he constantly asked, "What do I
know?" Not as a provocation, but as a
starting point, because admitting
ignorance for him was not an
intellectual failure. It was a
liberation. It was stopping the
pretense, stopping the maintenance of
masks. It was lifting the burden of
having to be someone right, complete, impenetrable.
impenetrable.
The modern world rejects this humility.
We live in a time when one must have an
opinion about everything, a stance on
everything, certainties as sharp as
blades. But Montaigne offers us the
opposite, the chance to be human before
being ideological. He believed that our
fragility, our doubts, our
contradictions are not weaknesses to be
corrected, but essential parts of what
makes us truly alive. And perhaps that
is exactly what you need to hear right
now. That you no longer need to uphold
false certainties to be worthy. That you
don't need to know everything to move
forward. That it's okay to be
incomplete. Montenia allowed himself to
change his mind. He contradicted
himself. He admitted that what he
thought yesterday might not hold true
today. He understood the natural
movement of the human mind which molds,
adapts and transforms. And instead of
fighting against it, he embraced it with
kindness, with irony, with
astonishment. He knew that living is not
about dominating the world with solid
ideas, but about navigating it with an
open mind and an attentive heart. And
that is why Montaigne is so necessary
today. In a time when everyone shouts,
he whispers. In a time of hard
certainties, he teaches the lightness of
doubt. And if you are feeling lost,
crushed by the demands of being someone
stable, defined,
unchangeable. Perhaps what you lack is
not direction, but freedom. The freedom
to change, to not know, to simply be.
But Montaigne does not just invite us to
doubt, he warns us about the price of
fleeing from it. Because the more we try
to control life, the more suffering we
generate. And that is exactly what we
are going to talk about now. The silent
suffering that arises from the desperate
attempt to control the
uncontrollable. If this content is
making sense to you, click the subscribe
button and subscribe to the channel.
You try to control everything, don't
you? Tomorrow, other people's reactions,
your career, your body, your feelings,
even what doesn't depend on you. And the
more you try to hold the res of life,
the more it slips away. It's like trying
to grasp water with your hands. The
tighter you squeeze, the more it flows
away. Have you noticed how much this
costs you? This obsession with control
is not just exhausting, it's toxic. It
turns you into a prisoner of unrealistic
expectations, a permanent inspector of
everything that could go wrong. And this
has a name,
anxiety. Anxiety at its core is the fear
of the unpredictable. It's the
desperation for guarantees in a world
that offers none.
Most people live in this constant state
of alert, trying to anticipate every
curve in the road, as if that could
prevent the accidents of the soul. But
Monta knew something that modern
psychology only confirmed centuries
later. Living in an attempt to predict
the future is to live in a state of war
with reality.
You see, human suffering doesn't come
only from what happens to us. Often, it
comes from our futile struggle against
what happens. It's the desire for life
to be different from what it is. It's
the denial of the natural flow of
things. Montaigne wrote about this with
an almost disconcerting frankness. He
accepted his pains, his losses, his
uncertainties not as something to be
eliminated but as an integral part of
existence. And by doing so, he freed
himself from the burden of resisting
everything. Have you noticed how the
most controlling people are also the
most tense, the most exhausted, the most inflexible?
inflexible?
They don't relax because they believe
that if they're not always in control,
something bad will happen. But this
belief doesn't protect, it
imprisons. Montenia, on the contrary,
proposed a conscious surrender, not a
cowardly resignation, but a courageous
acceptance that the world is not your
slave, and that your mind needs to learn
to flow, not to dominate. And here lies
the cruel irony. The more you try to
control, the more frustrated you become.
And the more frustrated you are, the
more you think you need control. It's a
vicious cycle that swallows you whole.
And what do you gain in the end? A tense
body, an exhausted mind, and a soul
without peace. Montaigne shows us
another way. Living well is not about
controlling everything. It's about
knowing how to coexist with what cannot
be controlled. But how do you do that in
practice? How do you learn to live with
the unpredictable without losing
yourself in it? The answer lies in
Montaigne's own attitude toward life,
the constant practice of
self-reflection, not as a way to analyze
oneself coldly, but as a ritual of deep
While the world cried out for
certainties, Montaigne withdrew into
silence to observe what was within him.
And what he found was not immediate
clarity, but a whirlwind.
Contradictions, fears, confused desires,
inexplicable impulses, all those things
that most prefer to hide or ignore, he
chose to confront head on. but not as
one who judges, as one who
listens. Montaigne's great genius was
not in creating theories about the human
mind. It was in having the courage to
become a living experiment of the human
condition. He transformed himself into a
field of study and his writing became a
mirror. In his essays, he does not write
as one who teaches but as one who shares
a process. He thinks out loud and
invites the reader to do the same. He
did not want to shape minds. He wanted
to free
them. By narrating his own doubts, his
most intimate impulses, his changes of
opinion, and even his moments of
weakness, Montaigne shows us something
revolutionary. You do not need to be
right all the time. You just need to be
present with yourself. This practice of
constant self-observation without filter
and without mask is one of the deepest
forms of self-nowledge that
exists. But be
careful. Observing yourself is not about
torturing yourself with
criticism. It is about learning to look
inward with honesty and compassion.
It is about realizing when you are
trying to deceive
yourself. When you are pretending to
know what you do not know. When you are
forcing yourself to maintain an image
that no longer represents
you. Montaigne wrote to free himself
from these shackles. He said, "I am
human and nothing human is alien to me."
In other words, everything that resides
in you, no matter how confusing or
uncomfortable it may seem, is a
legitimate part of who you are. And do
you know what is the most powerful
aspect of this practice? It dissolves shame.
shame.
When you begin to observe yourself with
sincerity, you realize that much of your
suffering comes from the attempt to be something
something
idealized from following an unrealistic
model of emotional, intellectual or moral
moral
perfection. Montaigne reminds us that we
are not marble statues. We are mutable,
flawed beings and beautifully imperfect.
The simplicity we seek begins when we
stop fighting against our own nature.
And here comes a powerful key. This
acceptance is not
passivity. On the contrary, it is the
first step toward any real
transformation because only those who
see themselves clearly can change
authentically. Only those who embrace
their shadow can walk toward the light.
But there is another essential layer to
this journey. Because even if you start
to observe yourself, you still need to
deal with something inevitable. Change.
Nothing in you, in others, or in the
world remains fixed. And as long as we
do not understand this truth and do not
learn to live with it, we will continue
to suffer. This is what we will talk
about now. If what you're hearing
resonates with you, you'll find real
value in my ebook, Beyond the Shadow. It
breaks down Yung's core ideas and gives
you tools to understand yourself more
comment. Most people live as if life
should be a straight line, as if one day
by acquiring certain knowledge,
stability, or success, everything would
finally fall into place. as if there
were a destination where everything
would stop changing, where feelings
would stabilize, where doubts would
disappear and things would make sense.
But this fantasy sold by religions,
schools, gurus, and even corporate
culture is precisely what distances us
from reality and from peace. Montaigne
saw this with rare clarity. He knew that
everything in life pulses in flow. Our
thoughts change. Our bodies age. People
come and go. Our desires transform. Our
certainties dissolve. Nothing is fixed.
Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is
definitive. And trying to live as if it
were, as if life should be predictable,
unchanging, controllable. Is to prepare
the ground for frustration, suffering,
and emotional collapse. Change is not an
accident. It is the essence of existence
and the more we resist it, the more
rigid, bitter and disconnected from the
present we
become. Monta accepted his changes as
part of his humanity.
He knew that being inconsistent at times
was a sign of
growth. That changing one's mind was a
sign of courage. That letting go of an
old thought, even for another equally
uncertain one, was a step toward
clarity. Constancy is a virtue of
mechanical minds, he provocatively
stated. For him, living well was not
about clinging to a fixed identity, but
about dancing with
impermanence. Have you noticed how most
of your fears are linked to the
possibility of change? Fear of losing
someone, fear of losing a job, fear of things
things
changing. But what if instead of
resisting, you began to embrace these
transformations as part of the natural
process of life, as Montaigne did? What
if you stopped viewing each transition
as a failure and started seeing it as
evolution? Accepting change is not about
conforming. It is about stopping the
fight against the flow of reality. It is
learning to ride the wave instead of
trying to dam the sea. The lightness
that so many seek does not come from
forced stability, but from inner
flexibility, from the ability to let go,
to adapt, to be reborn. Montaigne
understood this before his time. And
perhaps you are beginning to understand
it now. But recognizing change as
natural does not solve
everything. It is necessary to know how
to deal with this instability from
within. How to sustain one's existence
amid doubt, chaos, and the unknown
without going
mad. This is where philosophy meets
practice and where Montaigne offers us a
path. The construction of mental habits,
of internal rituals that help us live
uncertainty. Philosophy is of no use if
it doesn't touch real life. Montaigne
knew this. His texts are not abstract
musings. They are existential tools. He
didn't write to impress intellectuals,
but to understand how to deal with the
fear of death, with sadness, with
insecurity, with the aging body, with
the faltering mind. And perhaps the
greatest gift Montenia left us was
precisely this. The idea that thinking
is an act of survival. That reflecting
on one's own life is a way to learn to
live it with more courage and less
suffering. But how exactly does one live
with uncertainty? It's not just a matter
of accepting. It's a constant practice,
a re-education of the mind. And this
requires discipline. Not discipline in
the rigid military sense, but in the
sense of commitment to your own freedom.
Because living well with uncertainty is
a daily exercise. Here are some
Montenian principles that can truly
change the way you deal with life.
First, question your certainties. Every
time you feel 100% sure about something,
stop, observe, reflect. Absolute
certainty is often a disguise for fear,
a defense mechanism against the
discomfort of not knowing. Montenia did
exactly that. He doubted even his own
thoughts, not out of insecurity, but out
of wisdom. He knew that the most
dangerous thought is the one that does
not admit to being
revised. Second, practice self-questing
as a ritual.
ritual.
Write. It doesn't matter if it's a
diary, a letter that will never be sent,
or a loose note. Putting your thoughts
on paper is a powerful way to make
visible what troubles you. Montaigne
wrote hundreds of pages about himself,
not out of vanity, but to understand
himself, to organize internal chaos, to
make his own mind habitable. Third,
embrace impermanence as an organizing
principle. Plan, yes, but know how to
let go of the plan when life changes
because it will
change. Flexibility is true strength.
Instead of relying on fragile
certainties, learn to move with ease.
Adapt, reconfigure, reinvent. Montaigen
said that the wisest man is the one who
knows how to change with the things that
change. Fourth, cultivate humor in the
face of your own fragility. Yes, laugh
at yourself. Monten didn't take himself
too seriously and that's why he was so
profound. He laughed at his own
inconsistencies, mocked his fears, and
ironized his vanity. Humor is a way not
to be crushed by your own demands. It's
a way of saying I am human and that's
okay. Finally, reserve moments of
silence to be with yourself without
distraction. No phone, no stimulation, just
just
presence. Solitude was Montaigne's
greatest ally. Not for isolation, but
for clarity. It is in silence that you
hear what you really think. It is in the
pause that the mind reorganizes itself.
And it is in that internal space that
uncertainty ceases to be a threat and
transforms into fertile ground for new
possibilities. But all of this, as
powerful as it is, only makes sense when
you see the real value behind all this
practice. Freedom.
The freedom to be who you are without
needing to have all the answers. The
freedom to live lightly even when
nothing is certain. The freedom to
belong to yourself. And it is precisely
with this theme, the inner freedom that
arises from the acceptance of doubt that
we will conclude this journey. Because
Montaigne didn't just want you to
survive chaos. He wanted you to dance with
it. In the end, everything you tried so
hard to control was from the very beginning
beginning
uncontrollable. Life was not made to fit
into your emotional spreadsheets, nor to
obey your idealized calendar. People
will disappoint you. Plans will fail.
Feelings will change. And none of this
is a mistake. It is simply the nature of
things. Montaigne understood this with
an almost uncomfortable clarity. He saw
that suffering does not come from change
itself but from the resistance to it.
From the refusal to accept that life is
flow not
form. When you embrace uncertainty
something changes not in the world
outside but within you. Rigidity begins
to give way. Anxiety loses its meaning.
You stop fighting against what is and
start flowing with what presents itself.
This is not resignation. It is wisdom.
It is emotional maturity. It is freedom.
The freedom to live without the burden
of having to understand everything. To
not need a label for every feeling, an
explanation for every pain, a right path
for every choice. Life does not demand
perfection from you. It only asks for
presence. The simplicity we seek so much
is not outside. It is not in a life
without problems, in an impeccable
routine, or in a completely planned
future. It is in the moment you allow
yourself not to know. In the moment you
say with honesty and courage, I don't
have all the answers. And that's okay
because it is in that space of humility
that true peace is born. The peace that
does not depend on circumstances. the
peace that comes from within. Montaigne
taught us that by accepting our
ignorance, we become more human and more
free. And if you've made it this far, if
this message resonated within you, it's
because there is a part of you ready to
let go of the weight of control, ready
to breathe more lightly, ready to live
with more authenticity.
So tell me, what in you still resists the
the
unknown? What do you feel when you look
to the future and see no clear answers?
Comment below. Share how this reflection
touched you. I read every comment
attentively and rest assured someone
will recognize themselves in your experience.
experience.
This exchange is powerful and if this
journey has made sense to you, I invite
you to continue. The next video is
important, very important, and it will
delve even deeper into this conversation
we started here. Subscribe to the
channel, activate the notification bell,
and above all, don't stop now. You've
already taken the first step. Keep going
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
