Tolerate Ambiguity
In my most recent Virtual Mental Agility Workshop I asked the student-athletes what their biggest stressor was as a result of this pandemic. Almost all struggled with the questions: “When will this pandemic end” or “When will life get back to normal?” These were college students that had their expected college experience ripped out from under them. No life in dorms or sorority houses. No classes with their friends. No time to socialize at the student union. On top of that, these were all women’s lacrosse players who weren’t even sure if the 2021 season was going to happen, or if it was going to start and then end as abruptly as the 2020 season did.
Virginia Satir
The uncertainty of what might happen was worse than the current experience of living with online classes, masks, and social distancing. This tracks with one of my favorite quotes often attributed to Virginia Satir:
The certainty of misery is preferable to the misery of uncertainty.
We are pattern-seeking primates who are deeply unnerved by situations we cannot easily categorize, and a global pandemic not seen since 1918 is most definitely one of these situations. Most of us have begrudgingly adapted to an uncomfortable normal. I don’t enjoy wearing a mask - I wear one anyway. I don’t like not hugging my friends - I air high five instead. I do like avoiding crowds, as an introvert and socially anxious individual I avoid crowds anyway!
I told this quote to the women at my workshop, and explained how deeply unsettling uncertainty is to our psyche because our stress response evolved to focus on the negative. Consider being a hunter-gatherer walking through tall grass. You hear a rustling in the grass not too far away. Do you prepare yourself for an attack from a tiger stalking you? Do you ignore the rustling because it’s probably just the wind? In the former, you increase your likelihood to survive from a low-probability attack. In the latter, you decrease your likelihood to survive a low-probability attack. One or more of your ancestors was more concerned with every rustling in the grass compared to one of their fellows. Your ancestors survived, and the others were dinner.
Want a more modern example of the negative focus of your mind? How often do you recognize cars passing you on the highway compared to the number of cars you passed? I’ll wager the drivers in your rearview mirror barely register compared to the cars zipping by your vehicle.
Since we evolved from the humans that survived in a hostile environment, we are primed to think about uncertain situations and uncertain futures as inherently dangerous. This is great for protecting your life and limbs, but not so great with the long-term stressor of a global pandemic.
I told them that the pandemic would end, and we don’t know when. Also, life will return to normal, and we don’t know when or how. Living in that state of uncertainty is naturally uncomfortable for every human being on this planet, and we have no choice but to tolerate the ambiguity of the present situation. Maybe, like my sister, you’re playing Horizon Zero Dawn and taking out your frustrations by shooting robot monsters with a bow and arrow. Perhaps, like my friend Ben, you took a cross-country trip to Montana and slept in a car top tent.
Whatever your coping mechanism - use it! If you don’t have a coping mechanism - find one! I’ve got plenty listed on my different tools pages, and I’m always looking to find more:
I’m building out two new pages for college students and collegiate student-athletes, which I’ll release in the coming weeks. There is no reason to live uncomfortably in uncertainty when we have a near limitless range of options to increase our comfort and mitigate our stress. We will still stress, that is what the mind does, but we can make that stress far more enjoyable than our mind wants it to be.