How much uncertainty can you comfortably live with?

A huge indicator that determines your level of peace of mind and ability to thrive in life is how much uncertainty you can comfortably live with. The keyword being ‘comfortably’. There’s a plethora of people who go through life uncomfortably, with all sorts of worries and anxieties. Has Thoreau told us, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

A lot of this quiet desperation is related to the fact that we just don’t know what’s going to happen. We’d like to know. But we just don’t. It’s easy to drive yourself nuts over this.

If you want to be happier, you’ve got to embrace that uncertainty is part of the human condition. Lean into it. Remember the old phrase, “The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.”

Another great strategy is to reframe it. One way is to tell yourself, “This is what makes life interesting and worth living.” Since most of our feelings come from our thoughts, we also have to fight back against the thoughts cause us angst as soon as we notice them. Especially the cognitive distortions of fortune telling and catastrophizing. Some effective retorts to these would be, “How do I know that for sure? Or, “What evidence do I have?” Or, “That’s possible, but how likely is it?” Also, try “There’s no sense in thinking about this anymore until I know more.”

As Corrie Ten Boom told us, “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles; it empties today of its strength.”