Why Uncertainty Feels So Unbearable — And What to Do About It
We live in a world that rewards certainty. We are expected to have five-year plans, confident opinions, and clear answers to every question thrown our way. Yet the reality of modern life is anything but certain. Markets fluctuate, relationships evolve, careers shift, and global events unfold in ways no one can predict. So what do we do when we simply don't know?
Journalist Simone Stolzoff has spent years investigating this very question. In his book How to Not Know: The Value of Uncertainty in a World That Demands Answers, Stolzoff challenges the assumption that uncertainty is a problem to be solved. Instead, he argues, it is a condition to be navigated — and one that holds surprising potential for growth, creativity, and genuine human connection. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and on the TED stage, making him one of the most compelling voices on the psychology of not knowing.
Below, we explore five of the most powerful insights from Stolzoff's book, each offering a practical and perspective-shifting way to think about the unknown.
1. Your Brain Is Hardwired to Fear Uncertainty More Than Pain
Consider a classic research study from University College London. Two groups of participants were set up with the possibility of receiving an electric shock. The first group was told they had a 50 percent chance of being shocked. The second group was told their shock was guaranteed — a 100 percent certainty. Intuitively, you might expect the second group to be more stressed. After all, they were definitely going to experience pain.
But that's not what the researchers found. Participants in the uncertain group — the ones who didn't know whether they would be shocked — reported significantly higher levels of stress and anxiety than those who knew pain was coming. The conclusion is striking: for our brains, not knowing is often worse than knowing something bad will happen.
This biological reality helps explain so much of our modern anxiety. We doom-scroll through news apps, refresh our email obsessively, and ask "what if" questions on an endless loop. We are, in a very literal sense, wired to seek certainty. Understanding this isn't a cure, but it is the beginning of a more compassionate relationship with your own restless mind.
2. You Can't Control Uncertainty, But You Can Control Your Response
This is perhaps the central thesis of Stolzoff's entire book, and it is deceptively simple: you cannot eliminate uncertainty, but you can choose how you meet it. This distinction matters enormously. Much of our suffering around the unknown comes not from the uncertainty itself, but from our desperate and exhausting attempts to control what cannot be controlled.
When we accept that uncertainty is a permanent feature of human experience — not a temporary inconvenience we can engineer our way out of — something shifts. Energy that was spent on false control can be redirected toward genuine responsiveness. This is where innovation, creativity, and resilience are actually born. The most adaptive people and organizations are not those who predicted the future correctly; they are those who learned to act wisely in the face of incomplete information.
3. Uncertainty Is the Birthplace of Growth and Opportunity
There is a reason the most transformative moments in people's lives tend to cluster around periods of deep uncertainty — a career change, a move to a new city, the end of a relationship, the beginning of one. It is precisely because the outcome is unknown that these moments carry such weight and possibility.
Stolzoff argues that an intentional response to the unknown is what unlocks personal growth. When we allow ourselves to sit with not knowing — rather than immediately rushing toward a premature answer — we create space for more nuanced thinking, deeper learning, and more authentic decision-making. Certainty closes doors. Uncertainty, approached with the right mindset, can open them.
This reframe is not about toxic positivity or pretending that ambiguity is comfortable. It is about recognizing that discomfort and opportunity often occupy the same space.
4. Demanding Answers Too Quickly Is a Form of Intellectual Cowardice
Modern culture has a low tolerance for "I don't know." From social media to political discourse to workplace culture, there is enormous pressure to have a take, to pick a side, to project confidence even when the situation genuinely calls for caution. Stolzoff suggests this demand for instant answers is not a sign of intellectual strength — it is often a way of avoiding the harder work of genuine inquiry.
Saying "I don't know yet" or "I need more time to think about this" requires a kind of intellectual courage that our culture rarely rewards. But those who practice this honesty tend to make better decisions over time, build deeper trust with others, and experience less of the cognitive dissonance that comes from defending positions we were never truly certain about in the first place.
5. Learning to Sit With Not Knowing Is a Skill You Can Develop
The good news is that tolerance for uncertainty is not a fixed personality trait. It is a skill — one that can be deliberately practiced and cultivated over time. Stolzoff draws on research from psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience to outline concrete ways that individuals can build a healthier relationship with the unknown.
- Practice epistemic humility: Regularly remind yourself that your current understanding is incomplete, and that this is normal and acceptable.
- Delay the urge to conclude: When facing a difficult question, resist the pressure to reach an answer immediately. Give your thinking room to breathe.
- Reframe uncertainty as data: When you notice yourself feeling anxious about not knowing something, treat that feeling as useful information rather than a threat to be neutralized.
- Seek out diverse perspectives: Other people's uncertainty can help normalize your own and often reveals possibilities you hadn't considered.
The Bottom Line: Not Knowing Can Be a Superpower
Simone Stolzoff's work arrives at exactly the right moment. In a world saturated with confident takes, algorithmic certainty, and the relentless pressure to have everything figured out, How to Not Know offers something rare and genuinely valuable: permission to be uncertain — and a practical guide for what to do with that uncertainty when it arrives.
The goal is not to become comfortable with chaos for its own sake. It is to stop treating uncertainty as the enemy of a good life and start recognizing it as one of its most essential ingredients. Growth lives at the edge of what we don't yet know. The question is whether we are willing to lean into that edge rather than retreat from it.
If you are navigating a period of personal, professional, or creative uncertainty right now, Stolzoff's insights offer a grounded and humane starting point. You cannot know everything. But you can learn to not know — and that, it turns out, makes all the difference.