CHOICES SHAPE YOUR FUTURE
By Judith Ashton
I came across a term I hadn’t heard before, “Radical uncertainty,” popularized by two economists, Kay and King. Some things like throwing a dice or betting have certain odds that make outcomes vaguely possible. Radical uncertainty applies where possible future states can’t be defined; the difference in other words between calculated risk and real uncertainty.
Their reasoning soon became too complex for me to follow, so I let my thoughts wander towards uncertainty itself: when you stop to consider it, everything is uncertain, yet we cling to what is always changing.
For millennia, uncertainty was simply part of life. People didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. There was no alternative.
Today, we demand certainty and are fooling ourselves in the process. Our lives are actually all about uncertainty, hope and trust. Plato called us, “Puppets of the gods!”
We go to bed expecting to wake up and leave for work expecting to return home. Yet many of us know someone who did neither. Life is inherently uncertain; no one can say what tomorrow will bring. Recognising this is both radical uncertainty and radical wisdom.
We want certainty about everything… we take out insurance policies and want to hedge our bets….we want to know that our partner will love us forever etc. There are NO foregone conclusions.
Isn’t there a freedom and a relief in that?
Absolute certainty often covers insecurity and fear; those who bellow, “I am right!” will always fall like the politicos who megaphone this to their followers.
As I age, I realise that saying I don’t know can be a liberating and wise response especially as a therapist when folk can be looking for certainty.
I have no idea what the world will look like in ten years. I don’t know what new technology will bring. I don’t know whether some of the things we currently take for granted will still exist. I don’t know what surprises, good or bad, are waiting around the corner.
And neither does anybody else. It is simply reality.
Let’s face it, life is uncertain. Plans fall apart. Life and lovers change. Illness strikes. Accidents happen. People walk into our lives magically. People walk out tragically!
I have spent many years listening to people and am constantly reminded of this truth. We imagine we have plenty of time. Then suddenly, something happens which reminds us that nowt is guaranteed. We can’t insure against life itself!
This does not mean abandoning plans or ignoring the future. It means adapting when circumstances change and being able to say, “I don’t know,” without feeling stupid.
It also means learning to live in the present. Why worry about an uncertain future?
Fear steals the ordinary moments that are actually our lives.
A cup of tea with a friend. A countryside walk. A conversation with someone we love. The sound of birds in the garden. Laughter around a kitchen table.
These are not trivialities but vital moments punctuating our lives and giving them meaning.
We shouldn’t pretend everything will be alright and stick our heads in the sand; (I can’t bear the grinning Turkey-toothed influencers peddling endless happiness on social media). That can be just another form of denial.
There are serious problems facing us. Some of them will require courage, imagination and collective action. We need to fully accept that we cannot control everything, but we can decide how we meet it. Viktor Frankl in “Man’s Search For Meaning” was utterly degraded by the Nazis during the Holocaust but remained steadfast by being in control of his responses to his humiliation; this was what kept his spirit strong.
Maybe life was never meant to be completely predictable. I regard life all as an obstacle course for learning and evolution.
We never know what tomorrow will bring. So, we may as well try to meet unexpected events with curiosity rather than fear, with kindness rather than hostility, with an open mind rather than a foolish, absolute certainty that we know it all.
And perhaps, in a world that is becoming increasingly uncertain, those qualities are more valuable than having all the answers.
Maybe we need to reframe a problem as an opportunity. If something doesn’t work out… well, maybe it simply wasn’t meant to. No experience is ever lost. We learn by skilfully navigating the hurdles placed on our path. Everything is a learning experience and it’s often the most painful chapters in our lives that teach us courage and wisdom, and often our hearts need to break in order for them to mend and stay open.
