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View Full Version : The Keys to Dealing With Chronic Uncertainty (WSJ)


SteveinMN
3-22-21, 8:00pm
I didn't hit a paywall when I saw this article (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-keys-to-dealing-with-chronic-uncertainty-11616371202?st=gtnpkt3tm68tg51&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink); if people do lmk and I will post a synopsis. How to add resilience to our lives amid the chaos:


“It’s better to be pretty sure something bad is going to happen than to be maximally uncertain,” says Robb Rutledge, a Yale University psychology professor. In a 2016 paper, he and co-authors found that participants in an experiment were about three times as stressed (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10996) when they had a 50% chance of receiving an electric shock as when they had a 90% chance. Dr. Rutledge hypothesizes that when we know the worst is coming, we can prepare for and accept it.
Yppej
3-22-21, 8:25pm
I think this is the philosophy Sweden adopted. There's a pandemic, it will be bad, but we're going to go through it not stop and waver and keep adding or subtracting restrictions, shutting things down, reopening, rolling back the reopening, etc. We'll slog through without letting our body politic fret over it.
GeorgeParker
3-22-21, 8:32pm
Interesting finding.

On the other hand the ancient human who heard a noise in the bushes and ignored it because it probably wasn't a lion, got eaten. Whereas the ancient human who heard that same noise and either ran away or brought his spear into attack position survived and evolved into us. Make of that what you will, but we do seem to cope with a recognized danger better than a potential danger may strike when we least expect it.
Simplemind
3-23-21, 11:43am
Pretty much how I have always operated. Both professionally and personally. I can't prepare for a hurricane in the middle of a hurricane....
ApatheticNoMore
3-23-21, 11:45am
I think it's how pessimists operate. Why are you always assuming the worst will happen? Beats uncertainty!
LDAHL
3-23-21, 2:16pm
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
- Marcus Aurelius
“Meditations”
catherine
3-23-21, 3:00pm
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
- Marcus Aurelius
“Meditations”

Good quote!

I think that having confidence and faith in the future, but being realistic about obstacles without being defeated by them, is the way to go.

Regarding the study, there are a couple of similar studies, I believe which yielded the same result.