Uncertainty disrupts our lives and routines. But with the right tools, we can learn to triumph — not only over adversity, but even over the unknown

Being a Disney character could be nice. Our stories would be predictable, and make sense, and the ending would be happy, with all the loose threads tied up.

But not too many lives are like that. Ambiguity is an inherent aspect of life. Our hearts and minds have their own way of spelling “uncertainty,” and it’s d-a-n-g-e-r. If we knew for sure when the virus would die out, or the vaccine discovered, we’d feel better. If we knew for sure that when that happened, everyone we cared about would be healthy and well, we’d feel better. If we knew for sure that we’d still have jobs and homes when it was all over, we’d feel better. But we don’t.

Stock markets don’t rally to uncertainty, and neither do people. But with a pandemic in the air, riots in the streets, and shaky prospects for parnassah, we’re being forced to face the precariousness of life. Uncertainty paralyzes us and can cripple our efforts to cope. We do whatever we can to reassert control over our lives, but our options are pretty limited. We’re being pushed to the edges of our nests, and forced to learn to fly.

Fear of the Unknown

Most of our daily activities are performed by rote. Uncertainty disrupts our automatic routines and makes us hypervigilant, both mentally and emotionally. It causes us to see threats everywhere, and to produce an outsized emotional response.

Cancer, with all of its unknowns and frightening implications, is one of the ultimate tests of our ability to deal with uncertainty. Researchers measured cortisol (stress hormone) levels in people waiting for the results of their biopsies, and in people who had been diagnosed with cancer. Sure, waiting on tenterhooks for an answer is stressful, but it has to be better than the stress of hearing that the biopsy shows cancer… doesn’t it?

There’s no difference. Uncertainty is as stressful as being diagnosed with cancer.

“If you talk to any woman who’s had a biopsy and had to wait for results, she’ll tell you it’s a horrible roller coaster,’’ said Dr. E. Lang, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. “When patients hear they have a cancer, they can start doing something. But while you’re just hanging in there without knowing, it’s very stressful.’’

Uncertainty is like rocket fuel for worry. The logical and emotional parts of our brains are wired together. When the logical part (the prefrontal cortex) faces uncertainty, the emotional part (the amygdala) responds with fear. In a study, some participants were told they would get a painful electric shock, and others were told they may or may not receive a shock. Those who knew they’d get a shock were more relaxed than those who were uncertain. When participants were given a choice of which group they’d like to be in, most people chose to suffer a strong jolt of electricity right away, rather than wait to see if they’d be shocked or not. They preferred certainty to uncertainty, even when it meant they were doomed to suffer.

“Uncertainty lays the groundwork for anxiety because anxiety is always future-oriented,” says Professor Jack Nitschke, coauthor of the electric shock study. And the more uncertainty there is, the more we’re likely to imagine worst-case scenarios and obsess about them.

“The strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,” said a well-known novelist.