Assuming this is a real question I’m glad to try to answer it.

(If its not a real question feel free to ignore my response below:) https://twitter.com/wired4story/status/1313576266562445313

Firstly, its often the case that uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it isn’t necessarily or universally so.

For those who feel trapped in states of suffering uncertainty can offer the possibility of relief.

But mostly, when we talk about certainty, at least in psychotherapy , we are commonly talking about ideas like security, continuity, and about projecting these notions into the near or distant future.

But in truth, we are never totally secure, we can never completely assure ourselves of continuity- we never know when the established rhythm of living will be dramatically disrupted by trauma, tragedy, a stroke of wild luck or grace.

We don’t know when we might be struck by lightning, might find a winning lotto ticket on the sidewalk, be hit by a car, meet the love of our lives or have a sudden fatal heart attack.

For the most part, certainty, security, continuity are projections, imagingings, illusions.

Certainty is a time limited, boundaried experience that seems to emerge during quiet periods between eruptions of surprise or chaos.

So how do we learn to live with it?

We can practice accepting it as natural, as a basic reality of every animal and living thingon the planet.

We can remind ourselves that uncertainty means the outcome is unknown or unknowable. It does not mean the outcome is certainly “bad”

We can build up our tolerance by sitting in contemplation of our uncertain realities, a little bit each day until it is no longer terrorizing.

We can remember that causal chains are long and that what appears to be a negative outcome may unfurl positive effects and vice versa.

We can look back at how many times in our lives we were certain about particular outcomes- both positive and negative- and look at how often we were wrong, or right - but only for a while until we were wrong again.

We can think about all the times we were certain “we knew” another person “through and through” and how often we were surprised, positively or negatively.

We can breathe into the reality that life is an inherently uncertain proposition- and consider all the things that we are grateful for and all the things we hope will pass and all the freedoms we would lose and how tedious the whole show would be if we were always certain.

For myself: four years ago I was told that I had a unique cancer. I was literally the only known case of my particular cancer presenting in a particular way, I was unstageable. We could call it stage zero or stage five - there was no knowing.

And there was and is no prognosis. No telling. No data, no statistics. No others.

They could take some educated guess to try to treat me and it could work or not.

They expected I would have this for life. That I could live with it for a decade or so on treatment

And then it disappeared. Which was also unpredictable.

And there is no knowing if it is gone, or dormant or merely undetectable. If it will reactivate tomorrow or never.

And so uncertainty has been my daily reality for the past four years, and I have some practice living with it.

And I know that we CAN live with it, that living with uncertainty is not merely relentless suffering-

and frankly I wouldn’t go back to the hubris and illusion of my life of certainty “before” for all the money in the world.

Life is changeable. We never know which way the cat is going to jump.

And embracing that can humble us and free us all at once.

if you are trying to build up your ability to tolerate uncertainty - if life doesn’t just TOSS you in the deep end (hasn’t everyone just been tossed in the deep end?) - that you sit & write or meditate or walk each day and think about all do not know about ourselves & the world

Build it up, a few minutes at a time, and then a few more minutes.
Withstand the fear a little and then breathe and put it out of mind.

Slowly, we can build up our capacities to live with complicated and unpredictable realities and appreciate the wilderness.

Anyway- I wrote about all that here, and how I found my footing in the face of and absolute and very lonely uncertainty: https://twitter.com/shrinkthinks/status/1308919921318006795