How to Cope with Uncertainty

In our modern world, we are conditioned to believe we have more control than we actually do. With a few taps on a screen, we can summon a coffee, a taxi, a jacket, or a train ticket. These instant hits of certainty—satisfying our needs in mere moments—give us the illusion that life is predictable, that we are in control. And yet, the big things, the truly important things—life and death, love and loss, how we are perceived by others—remain stubbornly beyond our grasp.

At the heart of our struggle with uncertainty lies a deep, often unspoken belief: I am safe if this is certain. Safety is a fundamental human need, woven into the fabric of our nervous system. When we feel unsafe—when we don’t know what will happen next—it triggers our fight, flight, or freeze response. In an effort to calm this unease, we grasp at control: we check the news, refresh our emails, plan every detail of our lives. But the truth is, certainty is an illusion. No matter how much we try to prepare, life remains unpredictable.

So how do we cope?