Uncertainty is a fact of life, yet we yearn for known outcomes. Every day we make decisions. Some decisions are small and inconsequential, while others are profound and life-altering. Sometimes events happen regardless of our decisions. And above it all and looming like a nervous wind is uncertainty. Uncertainty is forever.
But those who learn to sit with and embrace uncertainty are resilient and innovative. Those who try to fight uncertainty spend more money and live with less contentment.
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Morgan Housel wrote that “the four most dangerous financial traits are FOMO, an addiction to the appearance of certainty when none exists, impatience, and laziness.” Housel also notes that people hold their strongest beliefs on topics with the most uncertainty, explaining that people tend to be more passionate about religion than, say, geometry.
We really don’t like uncertainty. It’s easy to obsess over possible outcomes, chewing nails and pacing. We yearn to know what lies ahead. Yet in most cases, we can’t.
In a beautiful and intriguing documentary, the actor Jonah Hill interviews his eclectic therapist, Stutz. Stutz claims that no one can avoid three aspects of reality: pain, uncertainty, and constant work. Though we are tempted toward ideals of perfection—the perfect amount of money, the perfect job, the perfect spouse, or the perfect child—perfection is but a dream. The three aspects of reality remain for everyone: pain, uncertainty, and constant work.
The future performance of the stock market is uncertain.
We may seek to buy a home. Whether we will like the home, the neighbors, or drown in a sea of maintenance and upkeep is uncertain. If we later rent this home, the quality of the tenants is uncertain.
When we meet someone as a friend or a romantic partner, there is uncertainty about what secrets they harbor or who they might become over time. We will likely never know the full extent of another’s mind, no matter how close we are to them.
If you present yourself to the world, there is uncertainty (every time) about how your beliefs will be perceived. This uncertainty is particularly intimidating because we sometimes fear more than death itself the idea of being rejected by the herd and as such alone.
Leaving a job we hate involves uncertainty. We might find that the job we hated wasn’t so bad after all.
While death is certain, the way we will die and when we will die is uncertain. This uncertainty is one of man’s deepest fears.
There is considerable uncertainty in business. Will a marketing campaign’s value exceed its cost? Will a change in direction prove disastrous?
Our worst fears really can come true. For some of you reading, they may have already. For those who haven’t experienced tremendously bad news, you can be certain you will.
There are three aspects of reality: pain, uncertainty, and constant work.
Phil Stutz
What We Don’t See
It’s easy to marvel at the courage of some leaders in the face of considerable uncertainty. Those in wartime who made decisions that in hindsight seem obvious had no way of knowing if those same decisions would lead to disasters or considerable loss of life. We celebrate and lionize those people and their decisions. But what if those very same decisions led to different and worse outcomes? Those people would be vilified by history.
I once listened to a lot of episodes of How I Built This. Many of the guests now idolized for their success took considerable risks to achieve it. They borrowed money from friends and family without guarantees of repayment. Maxed out credit cards. But because their businesses eventually took off, they are rich and respected and guests on a popular podcast. How many others took the same risks only to find financial and emotional failure? What stories do we not hear?
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey didn’t get a college degree. Neither did Mark Zuckerberg or Brad Pitt or Richard Branson. It would seem to suggest that great wealth, fame, and success are possible without a college degree. While this is true, these individuals are very visible exceptions. According to the APLU, earnings for those with a bachelor’s degree are 84% higher than those with only a high school education. College graduates on average make over $1.2 million more over their lifetime. While there is uncertainty in the given job market and salary expectations for specific majors and career paths, we can be certain that the success of those above and others are exceptions to the rule. Again, what do we not see?
During World War II engineers were asked to analyze damage patterns on bombers returning from battle. The idea was to reinforce these bombers in areas that were most commonly hit to reduce the amount of planes being shot down. The problem was that one key dataset was ignored: the planes that never made it home.
What do we not see? We tend to place greater importance on the entities that passed some sort of selection process, failing to consider those that did not. This process is called the survivorship bias. The survivorship bias encourages belief in a level of certainty that does not exist.
Fear Certainty
Revel in uncertainty because it makes us feel alive. Sunsets are powerful because of their impermanence. If the brilliant leaves of fall lasted all year we wouldn’t describe them so. Nor would we appreciate the flood of pale light from a full moon or a shooting star or a well-cooked meal with people we love. These experiences are beautiful because of their impermanence. These experiences are beautiful because of the uncertainty associated with them. No sunset is the same and we therefore can’t expect it so.
Revel in uncertainty because it keeps us innovating. But take measures to understand real risks. Fear anything resembling a sure bet, financial or otherwise. Bernie Madoff offered a consistent 10% rate of return to his investors. But what he was really selling was the idea of certainty in a volatile market. He masterminded the largest known Ponzi scheme and duped many brilliant and incredibly wealthy and powerful people. They craved certainty where none existed.
When the world seems good and healthy and complacency grows around you, these times tend to predate periods of considerable uncertainty.
The late 1990s was brazenly described by many American pundits as the “end of history.” What followed, though—the Dot-Com crash, 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, to name a few—were rather historical events. But that’s easy to say from my 2023 point of view. At the time, the viewpoint was in no way radical. After all, the previous decade saw the fall of fascism and communism, notably marked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Liberal democracy was on the rise across the globe and market economies were humming along wonderfully, delivering wealth, health, and prosperity for millions. No major wars had been waged in roughly fifty years. Deaths from disease and starvation were dwindling sharply. Some diseases were being eradicated from the globe. Then things got really bad.
During the 2008 financial crisis complacency dwindled but only for a time. In the following years the lessons were forgotten or never learned and fat grew around the collective midsection yet again. The stock market soared and jobs became plentiful, at least in some areas. Urban metros with relatively cheap post-collapse housing and high-paying jobs lured college grads and others toward ideals of endless prosperity. Few considered the growing and jaw-clenched discontent in overlooked Rust Belt towns and from others who’d long felt ignored, forgotten, and unseen. Despite full-throated warnings by many scientists and thinkers, even fewer considered the ease at which a virus could spread in a world connected by approximately 100,000 flights per day. And as such the stars aligned to create high uncertainty yet again.
Thriving in Uncertainty
But as gloomy as all that sounds, never underestimate humankind’s capacity to evolve and respond in times of high uncertainty. For instance, the mRNA vaccine’s incredibly rapid development, production, and implementation is one of modern man’s major achievements. The list goes on.
But the cycle will repeat because we are human and as such are prone to forgetting difficulty with time. As the Onion would say, “History sighs, repeats itself.” As Vonnegut would say, “so it goes.”
Certainty is an illusion. Uncertainty is forever. And it is in uncertain times that we thrive.
It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.
Nhat Hanh