UNCERTAINTY AND VULNERABILITY—OUR GREATEST CHALLENGES?
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 6-26
Because of our capacity for fear and our capacity for self-reflection, human beings are plagued with uncertainty and with feeling vulnerable. This is “reasonable” because there are in fact many dangers all around us, and our knowledge and our capacities are limited. Uncertainty and vulnerability are the two feelings that most people try hardest to avoid, but, despite these efforts, most people are uncertain and vulnerable much of the time, and their awareness of this leads to fear, behavioral paralysis, and perhaps to the chronic fear in anxiety. We try to protect ourselves with buildings and allies, but we could always be hit by a car or abandoned by our best buds, and if we go hiking, there is always the possibility of meeting a bear or a mountain lion. We can’t live without other humans, but we are always conscious of how even those who generally love us can hurt us (gossip, envy, jealousy, greed, withholding, abandonment, exile from the group, etc.).
Uncertainty is endemic because there is much that we don’t know about other people and about our environment. We need to make decisions daily about what to do and where to go, but half the time, those decisions don’t work out the way we predict because we don’t know enough (and we are especially poor at predicting how we would feel if we changed major circumstances such as our jobs or home locations). There are many “certainties” that we count on (the sun will come up tomorrow; we will make it to work safely today), but we can imagine situations in which most of them could be wrong. We aren’t even very good at knowing what the weather will be tomorrow. Our obsession with uncertainty is illustrated by our obsession with predictions of what will happen—e.g., gambling, prediction markets, soothsayers, political speculations, anxiety when around people who are different and whose behavior we cannot predict). Since we must have some hope for positive outcomes, we continue to believe our assumptions and predictions, and we proceed with our daily activities despite the fact that so many of our predictions are incorrect.
Typically, our reactions to awareness (even unconscious awareness) of our uncertainty and vulnerability are first fear and then denial and/or attempting to claim greater safety than is warranted and greater knowledge than we actually have. With denial, we attempt to minimize the danger and put it out of mind. With over-claiming, we attempt to convince ourselves (sometimes by trying to convince others) that our knowledge is certain and that we have nothing to fear. A common example of denial is a spouse ignoring evidence of infidelity by his/her spouse, and a common example of over-claiming is a new religious convert jumping into proselytizing to convince others of his/her new beliefs.
Human beings frequently try to avoid the fears related to uncertainty by making up stories that explain the issue and therefore reassure us, such as the belief that the universe revolves around our Earth, since believing that we are the center of the universe comforts us, or the belief that, since the Earth is flat, if you go too far in any direction you will fall off the Earth. These stories give support to things we want to believe, such as readily believing the false rumors that immigrants are eating other people’s pets, since that confirms our belief that the presence of more immigrants is causing us economic pain.
All of these methods give us the false confidence to proceed with choices that we must make (instead of being paralyzed), but they also keep us ignorant and do not allow us to do anything about our feelings that would actually help for the future. Quite often we engage in these defensive maneuvers without even having conscious awareness of the problem at hand, which usually leaves the person jittery or worried but unable to say why.
In many cases, awareness or unconscious awareness develops into diagnoseable anxiety or depression—anxiety because we cannot find a way to live relatively comfortably with our fear, or depression because we despair of finding a way to live relatively comfortably with our fear.
Another common reaction to our uncertainty/vulnerability situation is to seek the feeling of being in control. If we feel that we can control others and/or the environment, then we can lessen and ignore the fear due to uncertainty/vulnerability. This is an illusion, of course, since we can never control others or the environment completely or with certainty (and it’s not good for others or the environment, either).
Despite endemic uncertainty and vulnerability, many people do manage to keep on deciding and acting with positive expectations. How do they do it? Because our existential situation is and will always be to be in danger to some extent and to be ignorant to some extent, the first step toward more healthy coping is to allow ourselves to be completely aware of this dilemma—to “know” (consciously acknowledge) that this is just part of being human and that we will never completely escape it. Then, accept this aspect of being human. Instead of denying or fighting against it, allow ourselves to recognize this reality and take whatever steps we can to protect ourselves and to minimize deleterious effects. We can do this by seeking greater knowledge of the dangers and using this knowledge to take all reasonable steps to protect ourselves (don’t speed, take bear spray on trails, buy fire insurance). The person who avoids going to the doctor about a bodily problem because he/she is afraid to learn what is the matter can find out what the problem is and learn more about it (both the actual problem and the problem of avoidance), including possible treatments. (This may also involve learning that medical science is still imperfect, but this is, again, just part of our human existence!) The internet is a new and helpful source of information about medical issues, and patients can steel themselves to be more assertive with doctors in requesting explanations in plain language. With acceptance, we implicitly “agree” to suffer the negative consequences of our dangers and the resultant feelings that we cannot avoid, instead of being surprised or astounded by them (I never dreamed that….).
Sometimes it can help with your fears to ask yourself to identify “the worst that could happen,” and create a plan for how you would handle it. Such a plan can never be perfect, either, but it is reassuring to know that you have done as much as possible in advance. You will have to accept that it’s the best plan that is reasonable under the circumstances. Another useful habit is to also have a Plan B for every feared occurrence, so that you can realize that you have alternatives.
Some people can’t stop worrying because they think (often unconsciously) that their worrying will act magically to stave off bad things that could happen. Actually, their life outcomes regarding the feared, uncertain situation will be the same whether or not they worry (unless the worrying prompts them to take more realistic steps toward doing all they can to learn and to protect themselves, or steps that make things worse, like isolating oneself). Acceptance does not imply doing less than one can to learn and protect self. It gives the possibility of greater serenity while still doing all one can. Serenity is not the psychological state of having no problems or threats; it is the state of calmly facing life knowing fully about human existence and its problems and threats and at the same time accepting our human limitations. We will continue to try to predict what other people will do and to make plans that we know may not work out, but if we accept our fallibility (after doing everything we can to minimize false predictions), we will live a less anxious life.
Somewhat paradoxically, sharing our uncertainty/vulnerability feelings with others lessens the fear somewhat. We all have these existentially based feelings, no matter what sort of exterior we project outwardly in our efforts to control, deny, or over-claim.
The combination of our existential situation plus the basic imperfection of ourselves means that there will always be problems that we cannot fully overcome. Some of our plans will fail. We cannot live free of pain and suffering, and we will never be able to shield our loved ones from all suffering (and or course death comes to us all no matter what). Inner peace can only come from the acceptance of our human lot (after doing everything we are willing to do about it), but this is not resignation. We can have good lives despite uncertainties and vulnerabilities if we face up to those uncertainties and vulnerabilities, “take the bad with the good,” and appreciate what we have, while reasonably guarding ourselves against what could happen. And, we will have successes, too, as well as moments of simple sensory beauty, which we can feel joyous about! Arrange your life to maximize those joys while you deal realistically with your uncertainties and vulnerabilities.
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