Hey. Thanks for clicking your way here to my little ol’ blog post.
If you’re up for it, there are a few other ones around this site, but as you can guess from the 5 in the above image, there aren’t that many.
I tell you what, though: if you enjoy reading this one, maybe that’ll make you curious about the older ones or generate some enthusiasm for the next one?
I dunno — I just want to write about something, sometimes. And since I spend a lot of time at work, I think about a lot of things that I could write about. This project gives me that outlet to write stuff that isn’t my novel project or my innermost personal thoughts, and if a dear reader such as yourself happens to enjoy it… well, good! It’s meant to be enjoyed.
If you enjoy it for the sense that “hey, I can relate to this!” or “Today, I’ve learned something (that I may or may not forget by the time I eat my next meal, but hey!)” then my mission for the month has been accomplished. If some other reason applies, I’m also happy to hear that!
Anyway…
It’s time for Post 5 of 72.
Why did I select Uncertainty?
I selected this month’s topic for a few different reasons.
The first one was because I couldn’t decide what topic to write on!
First, I thought that maybe I’d write on planning ahead: I’m pretty early into this writing project, after all. It would be a great boon to at least have topics planned out for a few months in advance. However, I’m clearly struggling with selecting October’s topic — how likely is it that I can pick out topics for six or even three months ahead?
Then, I got asked if I wanted to go to Squadron Officer School and realized that I would probably want to write on the experience of SOS for November, even if that post is a couple of weeks late. That made me realize that it would be extremely easy to want to write on a more interesting, timely topic by the time I get to a given month. Example: I prompt myself to write on the topic of Elephants at the start of November, but my experiences in November end up with me wanting to write about Accordions.
I also went to lunch with some coworkers early in the month, and the topic of career planning came up among the remaining four of us. One of us is a lot older than the others and he can retire in six years. His plan is more or less to do whatever he needs to in order to cross that finish line. I personally have a hazy Plan A. Even though I would bump around in the dark over the next 14 or more years, I at least know where I want to end up. The last two guys were not anywhere near as sure what path they wanted to take — hell, the next step was not so clear for them.
But we all know we have to take a step eventually, regardless of our plans.
So, if the topic was not generally to be on planning — pros and cons, different ways to plan, and so on — perhaps just working through the process of selecting a path or purpose would be better? It made sense to me for a bit: It’s easier to even begin planning if you have a goal to work toward. Is it even possible to plan without some kind of goal? Maybe writing on the topic of Purpose would be a better approach to this month’s blog post than Planning.
Then, I picked up the video game Metroid Dread. I won’t explain the bulk of the game, but there is a specific type of enemy in the game that frequently gave me cause to pause and gather my wits. If you run into it, there is a high chance that it will kill you, so you quickly learn to avoid the rooms they reside in as much as you can until it becomes clear that the only way through the game is through them.
On the 10th, I wrote a note to myself because of this game:
“Don’t be afraid to progress just because of fear, of recognized gaps in knowledge or skill, of inexperience, or even previous failures!”
I died very quickly to these enemies on my first few encounters just from pure nervous inability to control my character. The combined audio and visual design of the game works well to instill horror during these encounters. I did not know how to avoid, escape, or circumnavigate them early on. And even after I learned how to get through their rooms, the execution could sometimes still be extremely demanding and I might still die to them.
Frustration and discouragement aside, I knew the only way to finish the game was to successfully deal with these enemies.
And so it occurred to me that a great theme for this month, with all the discussions I’ve had and the fact of this being the popularly spooky month including Halloween, I had to write on Uncertainty.
I’m hoping that readers will have some specific sorts of thoughts after reading this article:
I’d like people to come away feeling better prepared to recognize uncertainty as a challenge to be overcome or as an opportunity to be realized; to feel like they can better deal with uncertainty when it arises; and I’d like people to share their own thoughts and experiences about managing uncertainty so everyone can learn together.
So, why does uncertainty matter?
We all face various intensities of uncertainty on any given day. Just waking up provides each of us an opportunity to start making decisions. Do I check the time or just go back to sleep until my alarm sounds off? Now that my alarm has gone off, do I go ahead and get up or do I take another five, ten, fifteen minutes to lay here?
You’re out of bed, maybe dressed, and in the kitchen. Do you want to cook breakfast, just grab a breakfast bar, blend a smoothie, bother making lunch for later, commit to buying something convenient? Going out for lunch? With or without coworkers?
There’s just an onslaught of options that each carries some impact on life, whether insignificant or monumental. Sometimes we are aware of those potential impacts; sometimes we become aware of them later. Many times, we have no idea.
But, we generally have an idea that the things we do matter for their effect on our time, our effort, or our expenses — this activity will take (or save) me some time, require me to think, write, draw, tinker, persuade, etc., or cost me dollars or dimes. Even if we aren’t sure what the impact will be, we usually know there is one. Oh, and I almost forgot one effect: how we feel — the results of this activity will make me feel good, bad, or otherwise.
So, uncertainty pretty much infects all circumstances involving decisions — conscious and unconscious. The weight just varies, and sometimes that weight is enough to become stressful.
This post could easily become a general approach on stress management, but I’m trying to focus on managing uncertainty. Maybe the points below end up matching perfectly to stress management. Either way, I think there are a few solid options for dealing with uncertainty.
Also, since it’s likely the most timely and universally relatable, I’ll try to keep the pandemic in mind specifically as the backdrop for most of the examples I conjure up.
Strategy One: Actively Reduce Uncertainty
The first option for dealing with uncertainty is simply conducting research.
Depending on how you conduct your research, you could end up with conflicting answers about the pandemic’s reality, effects, and solutions. Given the generally binary nature of information sensitivity, I’d posit that most people will accept certain given information rather than wrestle with the truth of conflicting information.
Regardless of your take, I suspect that whatever conclusions you might have reached from conducting research or accepting the research of others has provided a sense of what the situation is, what if anything you should do about/ during it, and what the future will likely look like for you because of it.
Imagine there is an individual that has been lost in the woods since January 2020 — maybe they took one hell of a magical nap — and has just now returned to what is now this COVID-19 world. They see several people wearing masks, relatively fewer people, and learn about COVID-19 in general.
A fairly reasonable response to seeing all of this would be to ask “Hey, things are not normal. Should I adapt my own behavior or expectations?”
In this hypothetical person’s situation, research would easily begin by approaching someone and asking them why they are wearing a mask. Or, if they have a smartphone that managed to survive multiple months without being charged, they could search the news. This has not necessarily eliminated their ignorance, though specifics will no doubt be addressed.
“There is allegedly a pandemic. People are wearing masks and minimizing exposure to each other in hopes of mitigating the spread of a virus. Vaccines were produced and began being distributed a few months ago.”
“Also, there is no pandemic. People are letting the government lie to them, as usual, and these masks are just symbols of government overreach. The vaccines are actually poison and/ or contain microchips. Or, there is a pandemic, but the vaccines are lies and you should use <insert something that people have recommended besides vaccines, here> instead.”
“Inject sunlight!”
So, our napper filters this information as they analyze the research they decided to do and judges it all against some internal system of values, beliefs, philosophies, and other mechanisms to make a decision…
The second option, which still falls under the first strategy, is to reduce risks involved in uncertainty.
Well, how do you know what will reduce risks in a situation like this?
The vaccines may or may not be effective. A lot of people already got vaccinated. As far as our awakened hero knows, there have been some, but overall not many problems with vaccinated people. Meanwhile, a lot of people without the vaccine have died. Proportionally, many more of the latter have died than the former. It could just be this time of year, though — the flu usually has a pretty nasty impact on the population, too…
It seems like a pretty solid bet that receiving the vaccine is a good way to reduce risk of dying to what seems like a pretty real disease, though.
Also, now that he’s returned to society, he needs to figure out how to secure shelter and sustenance for himself. From experience, he realizes he can try rejecting this new world and just returning to that blessed nap. He could potentially avoid exposure and a questionable vaccine.
But wait, he got near people in the first place when he first returned to society. Is it too late?
Strategy Two: Simply Accept Uncertainty
The second strategy is less logical and more philosophical, I think.
The basic idea is increasing your tolerance for uncertainty.
I wish I could remember what I watched — maybe a TED Talk or some random philosophy video on YouTube or something — but presumably, circumstances fall into two categories:
- Circumstances we can control
- Circumstances we cannot control
Either category can have uncertainty, but regardless of the uncertainty of the future, we do not have to let that be terribly stressful. Even certain — certain as in guaranteed — events can be addressed this way.
Our friend, considering a return to the woods for a supernaturally long nap, has no control over whether or not his exposure to other humans will cause him to be infected with a virus, if that virus exists. He has control over whether or not he seeks out vaccination. He cannot control the effect that vaccination has upon him.
He can control how he feels about making different decisions.
I generally like this strategy a lot, but I realize it’s not easy to adopt a mindset that looks at most things without judging them as worrisome or not. That becomes a question that would be nice to be answer:
“How can I adjust my view to simply accept the things I cannot control?”
I lack a practical answer to this question, myself. Even if I do not always examine things from this framework, I have done fairly well at it for a long time without a clear grasp on when I started to do it.
Attempting to answer it now, I feel a bit cheesy. “Just don’t let that thing bother you. You still have to address it, sure, but there’s no point worrying about it if it’s out of your control.”
Okay, Confucius, go on…
But seriously, I honestly feel like that quote is pretty much my sentiment on many matters, even when it comes to mortality and things that I think most people deeply care about.
Maybe someone is uncertain about their current romantic relationship: What can and can’t you control in your relationship? Yourself and your responses to events.; your partner and their thoughts, behaviors. You can set boundaries and choose whether or not to enforce them, but you cannot stop someone from wanting to cross your boundaries. If someone disrespects your boundaries, there’s reason for grief, but dealing with the uncertainty of your partner’s loyalty or respect for you need not be a huge worry.
Uncertain about your professional potential? What can and can’t you control? You can improve your education, training, and skill. You can instigate efforts to improve your professional network and the quality of such relationships. You can instigate efforts to influence your work environment. But, you can’t make your boss do anything. You cannot force a gated opportunity to happen. You cannot independently force a raise for yourself. Dealing with uncertainty at work is less about hoping for opportunity and more about actively negotiating for it.
Uncertain about the quality of your social life during a pandemic? You can attempt to mitigate your risk of exposure or risk of infection by wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, and maintaining recommended physical distance while still going to friends’ homes or to parks or even restaurants. Or decide that the quality becomes positively undefined if you go take an enviable months-long nap in an enchanted wood.
I suppose the bottom line is that uncertainty can be dealt with through acceptance. And you do not have to completely accept uncertainty, either: it is just as fair to accept some uncertainty to alleviate that stress and worry associated with it. Call it increasing your tolerance for uncertainty.
Bottom Line
I know that’s not terribly comprehensive or anything, but it does seem like a decent starting point for thinking about intentionally dealing with uncertainty: Recognize that uncertainty exists, choose how to reduce the stress it might cause by:
- Researching, planning, or risk-reducing down the intensity of the uncertainty and/or
- Minimizing your response to (i.e. increasing your tolerance for) uncertainty.
Also, we’ve all dealt with uncertainty before this pandemic, anyway. It’s nothing new, but we all have a way of just unintelligently letting circumstances we can manage run amok until we’re given a good reason to pause and stare at a problem.
Now that you’ve (presumably) read through this post, you now have at least one set of ideas you can add to your toolkit for intentionally looking at the uncertainty you deal with.
The End?
Okay, so I sort of covered what I wanted to — what do you think? Did I miss anything you were hoping for? Does it feel like I missed something I said I would cover?
I did not present a lot of ideas here. Of the three options to deal with uncertainty, are any of these new or presented in any way that is clearer than you’ve come to know them? (I doubt it, but you tell me!) Have thoughts about anything that should be added to any of the above content? Think any of it is bunk and needs to be refuted?
Would you like to discuss any of these ideas in more depth? Let me know! I’d love to chat.
Do you have any uncertainties you’d care to discuss in particular? Maybe we can work on it together.
Thanks for reading, and I would appreciate it all the more if you commented or questioned anything in here. No pressure, though.
72 Airman's Writings 