Are You Sure?
Coping with Uncertainty During Challenging Times
BY DR. NURIT ISRAELI
“The whole future lies in uncertainty: live
immediately.”
– Seneca
Certainty is defined as a situation that has
no possibility of any different result; something
that you know will happen in a particular way.
We tend to crave certainty. We wish to be able
to plan and anticipate what the future holds
without the risk that, as the Yiddish maxim
states, “Mann tracht un Gott lacht,” meaning:
“Man plans and God laughs.”
But life is fraught with uncertainty. As
Benjamin Franklin concluded:
“In this world nothing can be said to be
certain, except death and taxes.”
Scientists, who are setting up experiments
and studies in order to reduce uncertainty,
share similar conclusions. As Nobel Laureate,
physicist Richard Feynman, stated:
“I have approximate answers and possible
beliefs in different degrees of certainty about
different things, but I’m not absolutely sure
of anything.”
And astronomer/writer Carl Sagan:
“Absolute certainty will always elude us.”
Uncertainty fuels anxiety, prompting rumination
over what might come to be, eliciting
images of daunting scenarios. We frequently
ponder: What will be the results of my MRI?
When will I get the Covid-19 vaccine? When
can I venture out safely? When can I visit loved
ones? When will the “old normal” come back?
When will the pandemic end? Such questions
can only be answered with the passing of time...
Instead of answers, life presents us with
unforeseen circumstances. Think of a day in
your life when every detail was planned. You
looked forward to what you anticipated would
take place, until something completely unexpected
happened that turned your plans upside
down. I remember a beautiful summer day in
NYC, delightfully planned: the MET, lunch at
a favorite café, theater tickets for a great play.
I had a scheduled mammogram appointment
for earlier in the day, just before the fun part
was supposed to begin. Well, it was going to
be a perfect summer day, until a radiologist
pointed out a tiny white spot on a gray x-ray
that apparently did not look good. I eventually
won that battle, and I have been counting my
blessings since, but I had to face my inability
to forecast what will be and practice tolerating
the insecurities of the unforeseen.
The era of Covid-19 is a time of unprecedented
uncertainty. The pandemic forces us to confront
new stressors daily. There is a prevailing
feeling of lack of safety. The rules of daily life
are different from everything we have been
accustomed to. We have no way of knowing
what may happen next. The feeling of lack of
control is inescapable. As hard as we may try, we
have limited control in managing our pandemic
saturated lives, and the threats are ominous.
The pandemic fuels uncomfortable feelings
of our own fragility and of our dependence on
others. The hurdles surrounding vaccination
characterize our uncertainty-saturated pandemic
lives. Personally, I was more resolved before
the vaccines became available. Since I heard
that the vaccines were coming, I became more
restless. It became a conundrum that did not go
away: When will it be my turn? How do I secure
appointments for the first then second dose of
the vaccine? Where will I get the vaccine? How
will I get there? A glimpse at the possibilities
of reclaiming some normalcy led, paradoxically,
to apprehension over the challenges of getting
there. Accessing the vaccine became a coveted
goal, yet the task of scheduling appointments
was a trying hardship. Initially, I tried obsessively
to search through multiple, confusing
websites and telephone applications – some
unreliable, others plagued by glitches and outages.
This, in the context of daily news about
the limited supply of doses compared to the
demand for them, vaccination sites getting less
than anticipated, lines that seemed too physically
demanding, canceled appointments that were
made in anticipation of receiving vaccines rather
than based on doses on-hand, etc. Not knowing
how things would pan out was unnerving. (And
oh, the relief when our daughter managed to
secure appointments for us and our son volunteered
to drive us to the site.)
It is difficult to make decisions in uncertain
times. A major problem with important decisions
is a form of self-doubt social psychologists
call post-decisional regret: concern over whether
the correct decision was made. The unchosen
option may seem more desirable than it seemed
before we made the decision, especially if the
chosen option turned out to be disappointing.
Remember, we are comparing a road taken –
aware of its faults and imperfections, with a
road not taken, a could-have-been – not really
knowing where the road not taken might have
led. The pandemic makes decisions that used to
be insignificant much more thought consuming.
Where and when should I go food shopping?
Should I use a taxi? Go to the dentist? Meet a
friend? These seemingly trivial decisions now
involve calculations of risk. Those of us used to
planning everything in detail find it particularly
hard to plan, when even minor decisions are
based on much that is unknown.
What can we do to be more tolerant of
uncertainty?
Simply turning off worrisome thoughts or
letting go of the need to know may be desirable
but unfeasible goals. Telling people who are
worried: “Don’t worry about it” (as if it were that
28 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ April 2021