The Uncertainty Mindset 2019-2020

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#10: Time for a change

vaughn2nd January 2021 at 12:21pm

This issue is me being slightly gloomy about the prospects for 2020, what with the imminence of Brexit, the Iran nuclear cliff-edge, wildfires incinerating much of Australia—and this was before coronavirus was seriously on the radar.

Post-WW2 stability, peace, and prosperity in the developed/western world lasted long enough to lull us into believing that this multi-decade trend would continue indefinitely along essentially the same trajectory. Even at the beginning of 2020, events suggested that this is unlikely to be the case. Since then coronavirus has put paid to this dream of ongoing certainty.

If the future is likely to be uncertain, it is time to invest in learning and practicing the meta-skill of doing new things and living a different life from the one before. In other words, in times of uncertainty it makes sense to build adaptability by repeatedly taking on internal uncertainty voluntarily and by design.

This is likely to be uncomfortable but productive—it's a form of self-therapy for developing the uncertainty mindset.

You can find it here: #10: Time for a change