Embracing uncertainty

Uncertainty = Bad, Certainty = Good.

I think that’s the way we are conditioned to think and behave – not liking uncertainty.

We go to school and learn facts about things. I remember finding out that we don’t really know who Shakespeare is and being astounded. How could all of those teachers have taught me Shakespeare’s plays and never let on that there was a huge question over who he actually was? Maybe they didn’t know that we don’t know. Or maybe they just didn’t want to say. Or maybe it was too complex an idea for young fragile minds. I don’t know.

I do know that uncertainty wasn’t a big thing when I was at school. Even chemistry experiments had a right or wrong answer – they weren’t experiments at all. Well, at least not most of the time.

The only time I ever got “taught” about uncertainty was in the final year of my MBA. I had three years (I did it part-time) with no uncertainty, then in the final year the idea that maybe we don’t know quite as much as we were letting on was introduced. It was the best and most instructive year of the whole course. I had a fabulous tutor who gently and patiently taught me how not to know things. It was a major step forward which I have been grateful for ever since. It gave me permission to find out things for myself and admit that I didn’t know. It was liberating and empowering.

Of course there are many areas where uncertainty is taught and learnt, but I suggest for the most part we prefer being sure about things rather than being unsure. I think human beings are basically uncomfortable with uncertainty. For obvious reasons I guess.

The truth is, however, that very little is certain. This credit-crunching recession is teaching us that. Just when you get used to life as we know it, along comes a global rug and pulls everything from under us.

The physicist Richard Feynman talked about uncertainty. He was certain that he was happy with uncertainty. At least he was much happier being uncertain about something than believing something to be true which in fact wasn’t.

It’s a fundamental thought. How many things do I think are true, whereas in fact they may not be?

There are areas of my life that are riddled with uncertainty. I don’t like it - I’m forever trying to figure out how things should work and how I should behave, just to have the whole pack of cards come tumbling down again. So maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe my models have just fooled me into thinking I know something when in fact I don’t. I would be better off accepting that I don’t know, and stop struggling.

So perhaps:

Uncertainty = Good, Certainty = Bad.

Some of the time, at least!

Hear Richard Feynman talking about uncertainty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MmpUWEW6Is