FIVE PERSONAL INSIGHTS INTO COPING WITH INCERTAINTY
7 min
trendwatch
The global pandemic and general state of the world in 2020 has affected us at every level. The personal is no exception. This piece is an exploration of how to deal with uncontrollable uncertainty.
Jelle Steenbergen Sander van der Meij
This is, perhaps, not the kind of article you would expect in Food Inspiration magazine. There’s very little food in this piece. I’ll be talking about COVID, as one does these days of course, but I’m not about to offer you ten top tips to innovate in times of crisis. I’m not predicting emerging trends, and I won’t pretend to know the changing needs of the current customer. I’m going to write about uncertainty, and how I deal with it. Not as an entrepreneur, chef, or food professional, but as just another person.
You see I’m not an entrepreneur, or a chef, or a foodservice professional. I’m lucky enough to have a gig writing about the most beautiful and most human industry in this world: hospitality. But I’m not much of a hands-on person. I don’t think I have what it takes to make it in a commercial kitchen. I cannot deal with uncertainty, which makes 2020 a difficult year, to say the least. Nobody knows what to expect this year, except the worst. It’s stressful, anxiety-inducing, and straight-up depressing. I’d rather run and hide from the world, but I’m here writing this thing instead and making the best of it.
I can sit here and write because uncertainty and I go way back. We have a turbulent history with a lot of lows and significantly fewer highs. Uncertainty beat me up a couple times, the last of which was about two years ago. I struggled with the questions everyone has come to know all too well the past couple months, or the last ten thousand years for that matter. You know the ones: ‘Who am I really?’ ‘What do I want in life?’ ‘What the hell is going on in the world?’ ‘What is our future going to look like?’ ‘Do we even have one?’ Not a week seemed to go by or another devastating climate report was pushed out of the relentless, eternal news cycle by yet another heinous crime against humanity. Equality and justice seemed farther away than ever. The picture perfect life I was promised as long as I stayed true to myself and held on to my dreams and worked my ass of every day grew less believable by the minute. And I’m a straight white male in a prosperous western nation. I play the game of life on the lowest possible difficulty setting. If I feel this way, what about the billions that have it worse than I do? What is happening to the world?
The uncontrollable uncertainties of living in a time of permanent crisis got the best of me. It took me a long time to get back on my feet, but I did, sort of. In 2020 of all years. I felt strong again, ready to take the worst that uncertainty could throw at me. I had this.
Then came COVID. I wavered, of course. At times it was so tempting to give up. I mean it’s a global pandemic straight from a Hollywood disaster movie. That’s a good enough reason to run and hide, isn’t it? But I’m here writing this thing instead and making the best of it. If a scared shitless little kid like me can do that, so can you. Maybe not alone. I couldn’t. Maybe by writing this I can help, a little, hopefully.
People need certainty. It’s part of your monkey mind, your primal instincts. You need it in almost the same way you need food. Uncertainty means danger, and when we’re faced with it our brain likes to spend a lot of time and energy to make it go away. Most of the times that works fine, but if the uncertainty is caused by something so big you couldn’t possibly control it, then all of that energy you spend trying to fix it is going to waste. Creating in times of COVID is a struggle because of that reason. Too much energy going to fixing the unfixable, and nothing left for anything else. So how do you deal with that? I don’t have an easy answer, but I’d like to share five insights that I picked up on my long road to recovery.
1: Go with the flow
The first thing we do when our existence is threatened is fight or flight. I’ve found that foodservice is mostly filled with fighters. People that don’t run away from problems and put their hearts and souls into hospitality. But you can’t fight a pandemic. You can’t deny reality. This situation sucks, of course. You want to do everything in your power to make it better, but you can’t until you accept it. Not just the way things are right now, but every emotion associated with it. Fear, sorrow, anger, frustration, it’s all okay. The best way to cross a raging river is to swim downstream. You’re going to need all your energy and fighting spirit to get yourself, your loved ones, and your business through these uncertain times. That energy is precious, so don’t waste it by trying to fight reality. I’m not saying you should give up. I’m not saying it’ll never get better. Accept reality, imperfections and all, and from there work on improving the situation.
2: Investigate yourself
How do you accept the world is on fire and you have nothing to douse the flames? You start by investigating yourself. What caused your uncertainty? Probably COVID. But what specifically? Was it a news article? A social media post? An interaction with another person? Maybe it’ll help to just check the news that often, or not engage with social media as much. Learn to recognize the situations that add to your uncertainty, and be mindful of those.
3: Create your own certainty
The next step is creating your own certainty. There isn’t a right or wrong way to do this. A lot of people benefit from well organized surroundings, a structured routine, exercise and a healthy diet. Here, too, it’s important to know yourself and find out what kind of certainty you need. Focus your attention on the things you can control, and make those things the best they can be.
4: Distracting your monkey mind
As I said before, uncertainty takes root in our monkey mind. The subconscious part of our brain unleashing an endless torrent of unstructured thoughts on us, more than enough to drown you. In times with a lot of uncertainty, the monkey mind starts screaming louder than ever before. It gets loud enough that it starts to sound like your own inner voice. But it’s not. You don’t have to listen to your monkey mind. It helps that our monkey mind isn’t very smart, and it’s easily distracted. If you give your monkey mind a job to do, it won’t be able to make so much noise. This is the essence of meditation, for example. You tell your monkey mind to watch your breath and use the quiet to center yourself, and differentiate between your true voice and the incoherent shouting of your monkey mind. If meditation isn’t your thing, there’s a million other jobs for your monkey mind to do. Sports, cooking, video games, it all works. When you successfully distract your monkey mind you’ll find that a lot of the negative feelings you associate with uncertainty come from thoughts that have absolutely no basis in reality. These worst case scenarios you convinced yourself were real are anything but. That’s your monkey mind trying to protect itself against any and all uncertainty. If you manage to recognize the difference between your monkey mind and your own inner voice, even in the most uncertain moments, you might realize things were never as bad as they seemed. And even if they are that bad, you’re stronger than your monkey mind gives you credit for.
5: You’re not alone
My last insight is something a lot of people know, but too few seem to feel: you’re not alone. You’re far from the only person struggling with uncertainty. That goes double for these days. And you don’t have to fight alone, that’s an impossible mission. Ask for help, please. Talk to a professional or the people closest to you. Look for the insights of others and share your own struggles. I promise you you’re not a burden. You matter and you’re worth it. That’s for certain.
7 min
The global pandemic and general state of the world in 2020 has affected us at every level. The personal is no exception. This piece is an exploration of how to deal with uncontrollable uncertainty.
Jelle Steenbergen Sander van der Meij
This is, perhaps, not the kind of article you would expect in Food Inspiration magazine. There’s very little food in this piece. I’ll be talking about COVID, as one does these days of course, but I’m not about to offer you ten top tips to innovate in times of crisis. I’m not predicting emerging trends, and I won’t pretend to know the changing needs of the current customer. I’m going to write about uncertainty, and how I deal with it. Not as an entrepreneur, chef, or food professional, but as just another person.
You see I’m not an entrepreneur, or a chef, or a foodservice professional. I’m lucky enough to have a gig writing about the most beautiful and most human industry in this world: hospitality. But I’m not much of a hands-on person. I don’t think I have what it takes to make it in a commercial kitchen. I cannot deal with uncertainty, which makes 2020 a difficult year, to say the least. Nobody knows what to expect this year, except the worst. It’s stressful, anxiety-inducing, and straight-up depressing. I’d rather run and hide from the world, but I’m here writing this thing instead and making the best of it.
I can sit here and write because uncertainty and I go way back. We have a turbulent history with a lot of lows and significantly fewer highs. Uncertainty beat me up a couple times, the last of which was about two years ago. I struggled with the questions everyone has come to know all too well the past couple months, or the last ten thousand years for that matter. You know the ones: ‘Who am I really?’ ‘What do I want in life?’ ‘What the hell is going on in the world?’ ‘What is our future going to look like?’ ‘Do we even have one?’ Not a week seemed to go by or another devastating climate report was pushed out of the relentless, eternal news cycle by yet another heinous crime against humanity. Equality and justice seemed farther away than ever. The picture perfect life I was promised as long as I stayed true to myself and held on to my dreams and worked my ass of every day grew less believable by the minute. And I’m a straight white male in a prosperous western nation. I play the game of life on the lowest possible difficulty setting. If I feel this way, what about the billions that have it worse than I do? What is happening to the world?
The uncontrollable uncertainties of living in a time of permanent crisis got the best of me. It took me a long time to get back on my feet, but I did, sort of. In 2020 of all years. I felt strong again, ready to take the worst that uncertainty could throw at me. I had this.
Then came COVID. I wavered, of course. At times it was so tempting to give up. I mean it’s a global pandemic straight from a Hollywood disaster movie. That’s a good enough reason to run and hide, isn’t it? But I’m here writing this thing instead and making the best of it. If a scared shitless little kid like me can do that, so can you. Maybe not alone. I couldn’t. Maybe by writing this I can help, a little, hopefully.
People need certainty. It’s part of your monkey mind, your primal instincts. You need it in almost the same way you need food. Uncertainty means danger, and when we’re faced with it our brain likes to spend a lot of time and energy to make it go away. Most of the times that works fine, but if the uncertainty is caused by something so big you couldn’t possibly control it, then all of that energy you spend trying to fix it is going to waste. Creating in times of COVID is a struggle because of that reason. Too much energy going to fixing the unfixable, and nothing left for anything else. So how do you deal with that? I don’t have an easy answer, but I’d like to share five insights that I picked up on my long road to recovery.
1: Go with the flow
The first thing we do when our existence is threatened is fight or flight. I’ve found that foodservice is mostly filled with fighters. People that don’t run away from problems and put their hearts and souls into hospitality. But you can’t fight a pandemic. You can’t deny reality. This situation sucks, of course. You want to do everything in your power to make it better, but you can’t until you accept it. Not just the way things are right now, but every emotion associated with it. Fear, sorrow, anger, frustration, it’s all okay. The best way to cross a raging river is to swim downstream. You’re going to need all your energy and fighting spirit to get yourself, your loved ones, and your business through these uncertain times. That energy is precious, so don’t waste it by trying to fight reality. I’m not saying you should give up. I’m not saying it’ll never get better. Accept reality, imperfections and all, and from there work on improving the situation.
2: Investigate yourself
How do you accept the world is on fire and you have nothing to douse the flames? You start by investigating yourself. What caused your uncertainty? Probably COVID. But what specifically? Was it a news article? A social media post? An interaction with another person? Maybe it’ll help to just check the news that often, or not engage with social media as much. Learn to recognize the situations that add to your uncertainty, and be mindful of those.
3: Create your own certainty
The next step is creating your own certainty. There isn’t a right or wrong way to do this. A lot of people benefit from well organized surroundings, a structured routine, exercise and a healthy diet. Here, too, it’s important to know yourself and find out what kind of certainty you need. Focus your attention on the things you can control, and make those things the best they can be.
4: Distracting your monkey mind
As I said before, uncertainty takes root in our monkey mind. The subconscious part of our brain unleashing an endless torrent of unstructured thoughts on us, more than enough to drown you. In times with a lot of uncertainty, the monkey mind starts screaming louder than ever before. It gets loud enough that it starts to sound like your own inner voice. But it’s not. You don’t have to listen to your monkey mind. It helps that our monkey mind isn’t very smart, and it’s easily distracted. If you give your monkey mind a job to do, it won’t be able to make so much noise. This is the essence of meditation, for example. You tell your monkey mind to watch your breath and use the quiet to center yourself, and differentiate between your true voice and the incoherent shouting of your monkey mind. If meditation isn’t your thing, there’s a million other jobs for your monkey mind to do. Sports, cooking, video games, it all works. When you successfully distract your monkey mind you’ll find that a lot of the negative feelings you associate with uncertainty come from thoughts that have absolutely no basis in reality. These worst case scenarios you convinced yourself were real are anything but. That’s your monkey mind trying to protect itself against any and all uncertainty. If you manage to recognize the difference between your monkey mind and your own inner voice, even in the most uncertain moments, you might realize things were never as bad as they seemed. And even if they are that bad, you’re stronger than your monkey mind gives you credit for.
5: You’re not alone
My last insight is something a lot of people know, but too few seem to feel: you’re not alone. You’re far from the only person struggling with uncertainty. That goes double for these days. And you don’t have to fight alone, that’s an impossible mission. Ask for help, please. Talk to a professional or the people closest to you. Look for the insights of others and share your own struggles. I promise you you’re not a burden. You matter and you’re worth it. That’s for certain.
