19 October 2019 | New Scientist | 5“THE only certainty is that nothing is
certain”, wrote Pliny the Elder with
classical authority in his Natural History.
Later, more waggish sources added death
and taxes to the list, but the passage
of time has done little to diminish the
original sentiment. Indeed, modern
life seems to have elevated gnawing
insecurity to an art form.
Whether it is awaiting a diagnosis or
the result of an interview, trying to get
pregnant or completing on a house sale,
few of us haven’t felt that sense of limbo:
of a fate in the balance, determined
by forces outside our control. The UK
has even been experimenting with
making it a form of national psychosis
with its failure to decide on its future
relationship with the European Union.
Good, then, that psychologists are
beginning to gain insights into theeffects of a state of limbo on our mental
well-being, and how to combat them
(page 42). It seems that our ability
to contend with uncertainty in our
lives has got worse in recent decades.
Our “intolerance of uncertainty” falls
somewhere on a sliding scale, with those
who are least able to cope at highest risk
of developing anxiety disorders.
Those insights give us new ways to
protect ourselves: old but good ones,
such as mindfulness and distractiontechniques, and also new ones, such
as identifying the subconscious safety
behaviours we use against uncertainty,
which probably make things worse.
The good news is that the research
shows that going through periods of
huge uncertainty, like Brexit, might
actually make people more resilient to
the smaller things. That is supported by
the recent UN-backed World Happiness
Report, which claims that the people
of the UK are actually getting happier.
None of which should encourage
us to seek out limbo when our fate
lies in our hands. Paralysing concern
about our planet’s uncertain future has
recently gained a name: eco-anxiety.
Protest movements such as Extinction
Rebellion are at least countering this
resigned apathy (page 23). Certain
uncertainties are best met with action. ❚Uncertain times
We can all combat the feeling of being unable to control our destiny
Not knowing
what’s going on
affects us all
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