Learning To Love The Unknown Future
Using values to make decisions in the face of uncertainty
The big pause of 2020 has made me really think about how we relate to uncertainty. The unknown that permeates our lives in minuscule and massive ways every day, now more than ever.
On an abstract level, we get that the Universe is always changing. There are forces too vast and beyond our comprehension, for us to have all the answers. But how does it actually make us feel, and act, in the moments when we’re not sure about something?
The scenario, whatever it may be, is ‘I have no idea know what’s going to happen with X, so how am I going to respond with Y?’ And that unknown, the X, might be tiny or it might be a global crisis.
Everyone has a different level of tolerance for ambiguity, but I know for me, uncertainty completely overwhelms me. I find myself making decisions from a place of fear, and perceived ‘rationality’, thinking that that’s the safeguard against discomfort and failure. And I have a bad habit of overanalyzing all of the different possibilities, hoping that the answers will magically emerge from those calculations.
But the X will always be an unknown until you make the decision, and never before. Life inherently involves risk, and we write the script as we go. So how could…
