“Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment – over and over again.”~ Pema Chödrön , Comfortable with Uncertainty
Since January 20, 2025, the US stock market has plummeted. As historian Heather Cox Richardson recently reported,
The threat of instability if Trump tries to fire [Federal Reserve chair Jerome] Powell, added to the instability already created by Trump’s tariff policies, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 971.82 points, or 2.48%; the S&P 500 dropped 2.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.55%. The dollar hit a three-year low, while the value of gold soared. Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that since Trump took office, the Dow has fallen 13.8%, the S&P 500 is down 15.5%, and the Nasdaq is down 20.5%. (Letters from an American April 21 2025)
Journalists and financial folks say “business does not like uncertainty,” and “uncertainty is the worst thing for business.” Which kind of cracks me up. Since who does like uncertainty and what’s more, when was the last time we were certain about anything?
We might feel a sense of predictability or stability but I would argue that those are illusions. If someone had asked me early in March 2020 if I felt like things were relatively stable and predictable, I would have said yes. And then, the world shut down in a way that was completely unprecedented and chock full of uncertainty.
So, yes, business is uncomfortable with uncertainty because most people are uncomfortable with uncertainty. This is why Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön calls getting comfortable with uncertainty the warrior’s path, a spiritual path. Since who of us could stay “cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears”?
It is a practice, to be sure.
That practice is to remind ourselves that uncertainty is the way it is. Historians might point to precedent and economists might point to trends. We might chart our uncertain course by these markers but the reality is that nobody knows what or how it will unfold. We are all, to paraphrase meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, one phone call away from our lives being completely upended.
Living in the United States right now is like getting that phone call every day.
Rebecca Solnit writes about uncertainty with reassuring wisdom:
I know we don't know exactly how and when [something more than the current protests] will happen, but I suspect it will, and I suspect it will start with something small, with a ‘one more thing/one last straw’ kind of incident. No one knows when or where.
Think about your life. Think about all the things that have happened to bring you to right now. Some of them may have been planned and expected – education, graduations, maybe the pursuit of a career — but none of them were certain.
And even if those expected things happened, are you still on the trajectory you thought you were on when you were 20 (and if you’re 20 or younger, 5 years ago)? I’d wager not. I suspect that you unexpectedly lost a job or got one. I suspect you were once surprised by the end of a relationship or the start of one. That you started something you thought would be temporary until it wasn’t, or you started something that you thought would be permanent until it wasn’t.
So humor me: assume that everything is uncertain and always has been. If that’s the case, what do we do? How do we live day to day in that kind of wobbliness?
Solnit suggests that we just keep going,
“...I don't know. Neither do you. No one does. All we can do is keep showing up, keep speaking up, keep donating, keep connecting, keep our values close and our courage strong and keep an eye out. And not give up, including not settling into this as though it's normal or permanent or we're helpless. I think I said here before that it's like we can pile up the fuel for the bonfire but it's lightning that will ignite it.”
I won’t lie: there are days when the barrage of soul-crushing atrocities and cruel arrogance of this country is more than I can take. There has been ugly crying and black moods, believe me. But most days, I do my best to keep checking in with my values and to keep showing up.
The words of teachers like Ani Pema, Heather Cox Richardson and Rebecca Solnit remind me of what I already know: uncertainty is the way of this world but that doesn’t mean we don’t have agency. As Solnit writes,
I know a lot of people these days are uncomfortable with uncertainty, but I'll take the true knowledge that is we don't know over the false knowledge that we do. No one knows the future. But we do know the past, which tells us that things happened no one anticipated, that history itself is made out of surprises that only seem obvious or inevitable in retrospect.
When in doubt or confusion with swirling, ever-present uncertainty, think of the things in your own life that now seem inevitable but were, when they were happening, unexpected, surprising and made no sense. That’s just what it’s like living here in the uncertainty of now and it can be scary and confusing...which is why we simply must keep going together.
Sources:
Comfortable with Uncertainty by Ani Pema Chödrön
Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American April 21, 2025
When Hope and History Rhyme by Rebecca Solnit
More Essays on Uncertainty:
Recognizing that I hardly wrote this essay but rather quoted some beloved writers/teachers, I offer two other of my essays on Uncertainty:
