Accepting the Uncertainty of Our Financial Life

I have a friend who is an emergency room physician in Salt Lake City. The other day, he described to me an interaction he had with a distressed, uncomfortable patient. After doing all the tests he could and finding nothing wrong, all he could do was give the patient that age-old, wonderful doctor advice: “Go home, rest up, drink fluids and call me in the morning.”

“The funny thing about this patient,” my friend told me, “was that after I told him nothing was wrong and he should just go home, he actually seemed disappointed.”

This happens all the time, according to my friend. It often seems like the patient would rather have a bad diagnosis than face an uncertainty that could well be labeled “good.” It’s fascinating: We yearn so badly for clarity that we often prefer a negative outcome we’re certain about to one that leaves us in suspense.

There is a lot of research about the relationship between uncertainty and worry. In 2001, a study by Michel J. Dugas, Patrick Gosselin, and Robert Ladouceur said of the connections: “Considering that daily life is fraught with uncertain situations, individuals who are intolerant of uncertainty may perceive several ‘unacceptable and disturbing’ events in the course of a single day… (Read More via @NYTimes)