We need to learn again to live with uncertainty and threats
This week in Germany, a big moment occurred. Angela Merkel, German chancellor for the last 16 years ended her time as chancellor and potentially also her time in politics. For 16 years and half of most of the young generation’s life, she stood for stability, decency, and calmness in difficult and uncertain times. Due to her, many of us have stopped to learn resilience as well as to handle shake ups and uncertainty. We learned to live in our safe bubbles of wealth and thought the problems of other people are none of our business. Now, with threats at your doorsteps that we never imagined, it is time to learn to live with and handle uncertainty again. The only certain thing at the moment is that we need to accept that the time of stability and certainty is over for a long time. To that, we need to adapt to achieve happiness and not join the ranks of pessimists currently growing more and more in society.
But how do we learn to live with uncertainty and threats and still manage to stay positive? That really is the million-dollar questions and a skill. We are surrounded by new threats and horror stories every day. Resilience is the key. We need to build up resilience within ourselves.
One way of building resilience is to actively face our fears and thinking through worst case scenarios in our head. As an example, for some people, there is a lot of uncertainty this year again on how to spend Christmas. The worst-case scenario for many is that they won’t be able to go to Christmas parties and see friends. But is this really so bad? Many of us least year had a different holiday period but once we came all back in January, everyone was just as happy. If we make ourselves clear, that our feared worst-case scenario is not even that bad, this can already build up a lot of resilience within us.
Another option is to actively reflect on the positives. What is it that we CAN do that we enjoy for Christmas, rather than only focusing on what might this year as well not be possible? We will then automatically focus on the positives which will let us handle disappointment and change better.
It is also ok to share and talk about out emotions. It is ok to tell other we feel anxious and sad about things and not to hide our feelings. Talking with others will help us understand that we are no alone in our feelings and that many other feel the same. Exercising resilience is easer together rather than alone. Handling change is much easier in a group, rather than just dealing with our feelings inside on our own.
Many of us grew up in a world of security, where things only got better. Those times might be over for many of us, however there is plenty of optimism to have and things to look forward to. It is important to remember that, rather than joining the pessimistic tones around us. We are living in the best times humanity ever lived in and it is important to remember that. We will learn to handle change and uncertainty again, and we might have to. However, that is a good thing, rather than bad and will make our society stronger overall.
Being resilient, strong and accepting change will take a large place in our society again, it is time we learn to live with this and that change, and threats can also be a good thing, rather than something to fear. Life is never without risk - it is time we accept that and come out of our bubble of protection we lived in previously. Times have changed, so let us change with them.
