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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Living with uncertainty
From the inside it rarely feels like avoidance. It feels sensible, even responsible, because who would go to all that trouble without knowing. The test is quick. Ask what would have to be true before you would go, then ask whether anybody could know that in advance. If nobody could, then the choice was never between going now and going once you are sure. It is between going now and not going.
No soul knows what it will reap tomorrow (Quran 31:34). Not knowing how a thing will turn out is the ordinary human condition, not a gap you were meant to close before you were allowed to start.
لقمان
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عِندَهُۥ عِلۡمُ ٱلسَّاعَةِ وَيُنَزِّلُ ٱلۡغَيۡثَ وَيَعۡلَمُ مَا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِۖ وَمَا تَدۡرِي نَفۡسࣱ مَّاذَا تَكۡسِبُ غَدࣰ اۖ وَمَا تَدۡرِي نَفۡسُۢ بِأَيِّ أَرۡضࣲ تَمُوتُۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرُۢ
Knowledge of the Hour [of Resurrection] belongs to God; it is He who sends down the relieving rain and He who knows what is hidden in the womb. No soul knows what it will reap tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die; it is God who is all knowing and all aware
Qur’an 31:34read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Difficulty tolerating not knowing shows up moderately and consistently alongside generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic, obsessive compulsive symptoms, depression and eating disorders, so it cuts across diagnoses rather than belonging to any one of them. That is worth hearing if you have decided this is some private quirk of yours. The links are moderate in size and they are associations, so they describe a pattern rather than explain a cause.
McEvoy PM, Hyett MP, Shihata S, Price JE, Strachan L. (2019). The impact of methodological and measurement factors on transdiagnostic associations with intolerance of uncertainty: A meta-analysis.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A condition nobody could ever satisfy turns waiting into a permanent decision.
When something feels unbearable to risk, follow it downwards. If that did happen, what would it mean, and what would happen after that?
An exam is a task with requirements. It is not a ruling on whether you are capable, however much it feels like one while you are sitting inside it.
When a decision feels impossible, put a date on it rather than pressing for the commitment. We will try this and look at it again in three months turns a life sentence back into a choice.