Uncertainty is bad, it seems to me, if you have it good, and, conversely, uncertainty is good if you have it bad. If you have a lot to lose, change can be threatening. As the election revealed, if you have nothing to lose, change — any kind of change — can energize you.
I was sensing that in many of us — who have it pretty good if we live in this area — there was a brooding sense of uncertainty preceding the election, and now that we know who won, a new kind of uncertainty has replaced the old one.
Check out the following headlines:
Trump’s election … has thrust the global economy into a state of uncertainty (Al Jezeera)
Renewable energy sector faces uncertainty (New Mexico Political Report)
Trump and the Consequences of Radical Uncertainty (German Marshall Fund)
Uncertainty and unpredictability about Trump’s presidency (Brookings)
Trump Return Sows Global Uncertainty (Bloomberg)
Those who seem to have the worst cases of the “uncertainty flu” are those who are news junkies. An online article in Psychology Today (3/17/20) begins with, “If you follow social media for any length of time, you might feel like going to bed and pulling the covers over your head.
“Longstanding research,” the post explains, “shows that chronic TV watchers and news followers have elevated fears because everything they see starts to feel like it’s happening outside their front door.”
In the article, Bryan Robinson, PhD, explains why uncertainty can be so troubling. “Your brain will do almost anything for the sake of certainty. And you’re hardwired to overestimate threats and underestimate your ability to handle them — all in the name of survival.”
Many sports fans know what it’s like to try to cope with uncertainty when their team is leading going into the fourth quarter or the ninth inning by thinking, “We’re going to blow the lead and lose.”
Somehow “knowing,” even if it is pessimistic and semi-unrealistic, feels preferable psychologically to an uncertainty when it includes the possibility of winning.
“Waiting for certainty,” wrote Dr. Robinson, “can feel like torture by a million tiny cuts. Scientists have found that job uncertainty, for example, takes a greater toll on your health than actually losing the job.”
Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm published Escape From Freedom in 1941 as Hitler was at the peak of his dictatorial power. The German people were living through a hard time and, perhaps worse, uncertainty regarding their future.
So to ease their psychological/spiritual suffering, to find certainty in the midst of uncertainty, they traded the insecurity of their freedom for the illusion of security under a dictator who promised them that he would make Germany great again.
A word to the wise …
Americans often have this “can do” attitude that produces a tendency to leap into action when there is uncertainty, and often that action is impulsive, and as Dr. Robinson cautioned, can add insult to injury.
Psychologists tell us that a normal reaction to a threat is to fight or flee. What I heard when I looked for wisdom regarding how to deal with uncertainty is that there is a third option, which is to retreat — to a place where the little child in you can feel safe and allow the adult in you to think clearly.
“Your mindset during [a] crisis is everything,” Dr. Robinson concluded. “Your perspective is the most powerful thing you can control in a situation that is beyond your control. Yes, these disruptions are scary, but fear, panic, and worry are not preparation.
“They add insult to injury — another layer of stress that can compromise the immune system and paradoxically make us even more vulnerable to the virus.”
I went to AI and found, “The primary purpose of meditation is to cultivate a calm and focused state of mind … which can help reduce stress, improve concentration, enhance self-awareness, and promote overall well-being.”
Your mindset during a crisis is everything.
In my church we frequently repeat verses like “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me.”
If we are willing to quiet ourselves and feel what we are feeling, we can get in touch with our inner child, not for the purpose of acting childishly, but to respond to what is core in us and thereby to free ourselves to be those adults in the room that we all want to be.
One of my favorite prayers goes like this: O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us.
Amen.