The following three nonfiction books, one very recent, are notable for themes related to dealing with uncertainty.
Publishers Weekly: “He argues that the craving for certainty inhibits people from exploring risky but promising choices, wastes time (people spend, on average, 275 hours per year paralyzed over inconsequential decisions like what to eat), and even damages reputations (studies show that admitting to uncertainty makes people seem more credible). Via a plethora of intriguing case studies, he highlights what drives the search for certainty (hubris, the desire for control) and how readers can better ‘thrive in an uncertain world’.”
Lori Gottlieb, therapist: “A must-read for our time―wise, compassionate, and deeply human. It will help you find steadiness amid life’s unpredictability and discover the freedom that comes from not having all the answers.”
II. Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing by Jamie Holmes (2015)
Scientific American: Holmes, on increasing our ability to handle a lack of closure, stated, “What I find really fascinating is how our need for closure is affected by the situation we’re in. So, our need for closure rises when we have to act rather than just observe, and when we’re rushed, or bored, or tired. Any stress, really, can make our discomfort with ambiguity increase. And that matters, because a high need for closure negatively influences some of our most critical decisions: how we deal with perceived threats, who we decide to trust, whether we admit we’re wrong, whether we stereotype, and even how creative we are. So much of the book focuses on the dangers of a high need for closure, strategies for lowering it, and ways to learn from ambiguity rather than dismiss it.”
Selected Quotes from Nonsense
The mind state caused by ambiguity is called uncertainty, and it’s an emotional amplifier. It makes anxiety more agonizing, and pleasure especially enjoyable.
Both empathy and creativity spring from the same source: diversity. Empathy, after all, is a fundamentally creative act by which we connect previously unimagined lives to our own. The path to embracing other cultures has to traverse the imagination. That’s why studies have shown that a high need for closure hurts creativity.
Not knowing doesn’t leave us without a compass, in some relativist nether land. Owning our uncertainty makes us kinder, more creative, and more alive.
III. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2006)
As noted by the author, related to how we “stumble on happiness” is the issue of how we deal with uncertainty. In 2009 Gilbert posted an article called “What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous.” Because what you don’t know makes you project your feelings into the future—feelings that may never happen.
“..(H)uman beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they’re uncertain about. Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.”
