Simone Stolzhoff

Yeah, I mean, there's two problems that arise as an extension from this phenomenon.

The first is that sometimes we expect to have definitive answers about things that aren't as knowable as Harrison Ford's age.

So, for example, I do a lot of work with people trying to figure out what they want to do for their jobs.

and i see a lot of young people in particular looking towards a question like what will my career look like in 10 years or should i take job a or job b as a job that can just be answered by a google search or a chat gpt query the second thing that i think happens is when we are increasingly dependent on knowing all the time it makes us less able to sit with uncertainties and other facets of our life

So there's a distinction I make in the book between acute uncertainty, which is something that is knowable.

Will I pass the bar exam?

What will be the results of this medical test?

Versus the more ambient uncertainty that so many of us live with.

When will I die?

What will climate change do to our planet, et cetera?

And the problem is when we aren't comfortable sitting in that uncertainty, sitting in that state of unknowing, we get less able to deal with that uncertainty and other facets of our life as well.

life yeah i mean we have so much exposure to uncertainty i like thinking about thinking back to it from a more sort of developmental biological perspective if you think about our ancestors in the jungle per se imagine they hear a rustling in the bushes if they don't know the source of that noise it could potentially be lethal and so our bodies have trained to try and get out of uncertain situations as quickly as possible

The problem is that we see a lot of false positives, which is to say that we treat uncertainty as if it's always a problem to be solved, even when it can't necessarily be solved.

So one study that I thought was fascinating was that research participants were given either a 50% chance of receiving a painful electric shock or an 100% chance of receiving a painful electric shock.

And those with the 50% chance felt far more stressed and anxious than those with the 100% chance.

You'd think those with the 50% chance would feel less stressed because they have a chance of getting off shock free.

But we would somehow rather a certain bad thing happen than have to deal with the ambiguity of not being sure.

Yeah, and there's a finding that's been replicated in other contexts as well.

So for example, professional uncertainty has been found to have a similar toll on our health as actually losing our job.

Just having that cloud of not knowing hanging above us can be equally as taxing as actually getting laid off.