Surviving Uncertainty: A Few Tips

Surviving Uncertainty: A Few Tips
Lane Wallace


In yesterday's NY Times Op Ed section, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert wrote:



If that's true, humans have been walking around gloomy and unhappy since the dawn of time. We forget, sometimes, that problems--often far greater problems--predated whatever crisis we're facing at the moment. "Why is it," a friend asked me once, "that we never recognize the good old days when we're in the middle of them?" Indeed. Today, it's the economy that's gone shaky. But epidemics, war, natural disasters, accidents and the fickle fates have been throwing humans curveballs for ... well, as long as there have been humans.

And without question, there have been some humans, also undoubtedly since the dawn of time, who've spent their lives worrying about all that uncertainty to the point of great unhappiness. But I wouldn't recommend them as role models.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous declaration that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself wasn't a blithe dismissal of the monetary, violent, or uncertain challenges in life. It was a caution that it's fear, not concrete challenges, that paralyzes us, and brings out the worst in us, as opposed to, as Lincoln said, "the better angels of our nature."

I agree with Gilbert that uncertainty is scary. I just disagree with his conclusion that it leaves us with nothing to do but wait. (There's an interesting essay that reinforces this point here -- by an entrepreneur named Phil Terry who founded an informal organization called "Fun Not Fear" this spring as a counterpoint to all the worry.)

But also ... there are any number of activities and professions--flying, mountain climbing, exploring, and being an entrepreneur, to name just a few--that are non-stop exercises in uncertainty. There's no clear path to follow; no predictable gauge on how events are going to unfold. All plans are subject to change, at all times, with very little notice. And yet, talk to the people involved in those activities, and most of them are passionately enthusiastic about the life they're leading.

Why is that? Clearly, some of us have a higher tolerance for uncertainty, and put a higher value on the new discoveries and possibilities a less-proscribed path offers, than others. But it's also because people involved in endeavors fraught with inherent uncertainty have to learn to cope with it if they're going to survive.

In the course of the past 20 years, I've flown small aircraft on five continents. I've been stranded alone on a glacier in shorts and tennis shoes. I've found myself in the middle of rapidly destabilizing situations in African countries. And I've started two businesses and navigated a career that, more often than not, has lacked a stable paycheck. Do I love all the uncertainty that comes with that? No. But I've learned how to survive it, and even embrace the possibilities it offers. (I've even written a book on the subject.) Not every lesson translates to surviving uncertainty in everyday life, but a surprising number do. A few big ones:

1. Don't panic. Self-explanatory. Panic and fear never helped anyone think their way clearly out of a tight spot.

But how do you control panic and fear?

2. Focus on the present. Fear is almost always related to something we're afraid will or might happen in the future, not what's actually happening in the present. In the present, we get busy with the business of coping. It's our fears of amorphous monster threats down the road ... realistic or not ... that tend to paralyze us. Ask yourself, "Am I okay right now?" If the answer is yes, take a deep breath and relax a little bit. You can figure the rest out as you go.

more...

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/lane_wallace/2009/05/surviving_uncertainty_a_few_tips.php

And I think he is right, fear is creating something in your mind that is a thought on what might happen. Stopping and smelling the roses in the now, and recognizing all the blessings, is so much better then dwelling on the bad part of challenges that exist.

we wait.