How important is it to be able to live with uncertainty?

I used to watch a movie called Mr. Nobody. It raises a very good point about the problem with uncertainty. You should check it out. It doesn’t really talk about uncertainty, but rather makes an assumption of what would happen if we didn’t have any uncertainty at all.

But for the sake of the discussion, and if you want a quick answer without viewing the movie, here’s the spoiler: the movie is about a child who is gifted with the ability to forsee the future. His parents are divorced and he has to make a decision of who to go with. He begins to use his ability and sees how his life will go if he goes with each person. He keeps turning to various paths of his life, and eventually becomes very stressful as none of the choices in life lead to a perfect life. He isn’t uncertain of anything, but he’s still as confused and stressful as a normal person with uncertainty.

That said, I think we have another question: what if we didn’t have any uncertainty at all? What if we already knew everything that would happen to us when we tried to make a decision? Would it make us happier? It seems to me that in some cases uncertainty is better.

I don’t know; I can’t be certain about much of anything.

I did read that book and, well… meh.

I had been drawn to it because I feel that it is very important to make one’s peace with uncertainty. In understanding ourselves and the world, the best we can do is to lay out working hypotheses based partially on past experience and the latest information available, but keeping open at all times the possibility that the whole scheme may need to be altered or scrapped.

There are some powerful and well-studied psychological mechanisms at play when we settle on a version of reality that we find somewhat satisfying. We become very resistant to disconfirming evidence and very defensive of our positions, because we become personally invested in them and we want to believe that we’ve gotten it right.

I’m not an aikido practitioner, but I was interested to read something that the founder of aikido told his students: When you sit down on a chair, sit down in such a way that if someone were to pull the chair out from under you at the last moment, you wouldn’t end up on the floor. That doesn’t preclude ever being able to sit down; it just requires remaining open to changing circumstances. Paying attention.

I think thrill seekers are often people who are bored with life already and maybe to certain of most things.
But yes. Most thrill seekers are attracted to the uncertainty and so you can say that being comfortable with that can bring a degree of danger. But then again, getting into a car everyday is also an uncertainty that can be dangerous or flying in a plane, or crossing the street while texting on your phone.
There are just some things we have come to ignore with time because of the banality of everyday life, but they all carry risk when we no longer see the risks.

I can’t speak to the book in question, but I follow two basic tenants on this subject:

Plan for the worst, be pleasantly surprised by the best. Embrace impermanence.

I am always hopeful, but I always have contingency plans and I know that nothing lasts.

Very, because it all is uncertain, but much easier said than done. Takes constant self reminding that really, we have little control, and certainly much less than we like to think we do. After years of stability I have been launched into a major place of uncertainty again these last 3 years after going belly up in the recession between 2010 & 2013. Some days I am fraught with stress and anxiety and others I just surrender to letting things unfold as they will.

I am in surrender mode again now, waiting to find out about a new housing situation but can’t force anything. It is all contingent on the people buying a new home of which they are not finding anything they like in the moment, so I wait. haha