Learning To Live With The Unresolved
Recently I came across an idea online that struck a deep chord with me: people need to learn how to live in a state of uncertainty.
I wonder whether you’re like me—someone who craves a definite outcome for absolutely everything. You send a message, and when no reply arrives, you can’t help lighting up your screen again and again to check. After an exam or a job interview, every second of waiting feels unbearably long. You meet someone who seems wonderful, but before the relationship has grown steady, you turn the question over and over in your mind: Is this person really the one?
All of these share one common state: things left unresolved. And if we can’t tolerate living in that state, we sink into enormous unease and anxiety. Without noticing it, that discomfort turns into a kind of negative energy that quietly wears us down.
But life isn’t an open-book exam. You can’t flip ahead to the page with the correct answer. Some questions simply have no solution right now—they need time to settle. When the moment is ripe, the answer will surface on its own. And even if you resolve today’s problem, a new one will always appear: Is this job the right choice? Will the person I love stay with me? Will my child grow up healthy?
Living with the unresolved doesn’t mean refusing to solve problems. Quite the opposite: allowing the answer to still be on its way, while you go on living well, is an enormously powerful mindset. Solve what you can solve, set aside what you can’t solve yet, and keep moving forward carrying your questions and uncertainties with you.
Today, Kelly wants to talk with you about this: Why do we need the ability to live in an unresolved state? And how do we cultivate it?
Why can’t we tolerate the “unresolved”?
Faced with something hanging in the air, some people rush to a conclusion—even a wrong one. Others swing to the opposite extreme: checking over and over, delaying endlessly, afraid to take a step. Still others rehearse the worst possible outcome in their heads, in advance.
Why does one unresolved thing make us feel so awful? The following three psychological mechanisms may explain where this discomfort comes from.
1. The unknown is frightening by nature
Some scholars argue that the oldest and strongest human emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown—a tendency to feel fear because we perceive information as missing. It isn’t directed at any specific threat; it’s directed at uncertainty itself [1].
From an evolutionary perspective, the unknown meant danger: Is there a predator in the forest? Is this berry poisonous—can I eat it? This vigilance toward the unknown helped our ancestors survive.
But in modern life, this instinct is easily overactivated because there are simply too many things we can’t pin down: How long will this job last? Will my partner love me for a lifetime? Will life get better? This fear of the unknown is one of the root causes of anxiety.
Neuroscience research has also found that when we face an uncertain threat, the brain’s alarm system stays activated until it receives a clear signal of safety or danger. Until then, that activated state simply persists [2].
2. The brain keeps hold of unfinished business
Have you had moments like these: a show cuts off right at the climax, and you’re desperate to find the next episode. Lying in bed at night, you suddenly replay a conversation you didn’t finish, or an argument that never got resolved. A project you’ve already delivered but haven’t gotten feedback on keeps circling in your mind…
…until these things are finally done, and only then does your brain let go and move on to something else.
In psychology, this is known as the Zeigarnik effect. In the 1920s, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik ran a classic experiment: she asked participants to complete a series of tasks, interrupting half of them midway while allowing the other half to finish. The result: participants remembered the interrupted tasks far better than the completed ones.
This is because humans are born with a drive to finish what they start. Unfinished tasks create psychological tension that keeps pulling your attention back to them. Only once the task is complete does the brain release that tension and gradually forget about it.
3. We long for a definite answer
Our tolerance for ambiguity is limited. When a question goes unanswered for too long, we instinctively want to search, to ask, to compare endlessly—anything to get a certain result as fast as possible and put an end to our inner chaos and anxiety.
Psychologist Kruglanski called this tendency the need for cognitive closure [3]: when facing an ambiguous, uncertain, or confusing situation, a person urgently wants to arrive at a clear answer—regardless of whether that answer is good or bad. Because compared with confusion and uncertainty, a definite answer simply feels better.
The higher your need for cognitive closure, the more you hate ambiguity. You might even prefer a definite bad outcome over an uncertain possible good one. For example, to end the agony of waiting for interview results, you might accept an offer you’re not really happy with, rather than wait for one you’d prefer, but that’s still up in the air.
And once you conclude, your brain stops gathering new information. Even if evidence later appears showing your decision was wrong, you may refuse to adjust your view to protect that sense of certainty—and end up making the loss bigger.
Three traits of people who can live with the unresolved
Given that our instincts hate uncertainty so much, what qualities do the people who can embrace the unknown and keep living with their questions actually have?
1. They can adjust how they respond to a problem
Psychologist Lazarus proposed a classic theory: when facing stress, we have two ways of coping—
- Problem-focused coping: tackling the problem directly. This works well when the problem is actually solvable.
- Emotion-focused coping: when the problem can’t be changed, turning instead to adjust your emotional response to it—accepting it, adapting to it, learning to live alongside it.
I remember when I first graduated, I was terribly anxious about not finding a job. The first thing I did every morning was refresh the job apps to see if anything new had appeared. During that period, I basically couldn’t live properly at all. I felt that until I found a job, I didn’t deserve to live in peace.
But my cousin, who just graduated and is job-hunting now, is far more relaxed than I was. In her view, the outcome of the job search isn’t something she can control; the only things she can control are her own effort and her own state of mind. So she eats well, sleeps well, meets friends regularly, and refuses to burn her energy on things still unknown.
People who can coexist with uncertainty aren’t necessarily better at solving problems. They’re simply better at matching the response to the problem—accepting what can’t be changed, and going all out on what can.
2. They have a high tolerance for ambiguity
In psychology, there’s a concept called tolerance of ambiguity: a person’s capacity to endure conditions that are uncertain, unclear, or poorly defined.
People with low tolerance become restless the moment something is unsettled. They need an answer immediately—even a wrong one. People with high tolerance also feel a slight discomfort, but they don’t let that discomfort escalate step by step into catastrophic anxiety.
What’s more, research has found [4] that people with high ambiguity tolerance report greater psychological well-being, show stronger leadership and creativity at work, and adapt better to change and uncertainty.
That’s because they dare to act while still short on information—figuring things out as they go. In their view, if everything were already certain, why would this opportunity fall to me of all people? Uncertainty becomes, in their eyes, a kind of premium—room for upside.
This also makes them more willing to try new things and learn new skills, looking for chances to grow amid change. This ability to keep acting and creating even in the unknown is precisely a core competitive advantage of adulthood.
3. They can keep living with the question
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), there’s a core concept called psychological flexibility: being present in the moment, staying open to whatever thoughts or feelings may arise, and then taking action that fits your values [5].
If each of us is the driver on our own road through life, then people with high psychological flexibility are the ones who truly hold the steering wheel. They know clearly where they’re heading, and they can flexibly adjust direction while continuing to move toward that goal.
They can also let the “uninvited passengers”—thoughts and feelings like anxiety, sadness, self-doubt—climb aboard and sit in the back seat, instead of trying to throw them out of the car or wrestling with them, because that would only make it impossible to keep driving.
And they stay aware of the road in front of them, so they can spot danger early and protect themselves.
People who can live with the unresolved aren’t free of anxiety or self-doubt. They’ve simply learned to be afraid and to keep driving bravely toward the horizon anyway.
How to build the ability to live with the unresolved
No one is born knowing how to sit with uncertainty, just as no one is born knowing how to swim. If you also don’t want to be consumed by fear and anxiety over the unknown, here are three things you can try.
1. Separate “what I can control” from “what I can’t”
When facing a problem, ask yourself first: Is this something I can control right now?
Or take out a piece of paper and draw two circles. In the inner circle, write what you can control—your actions, your attitude, your preparation. In the outer circle, write what you can’t—other people’s replies, the outcome, the broader environment.
Then tell yourself: I will put my effort only into the inner circle. The outer circle, for now, I hand over to time.
This helps you face one fact: most of what makes you anxious was never within your control to begin with. And when you pull your energy back onto yourself, the anxiety of feeling out of control eases considerably.
2. Write the problem down, and make a plan
As we mentioned, the Zeigarnik effect keeps unachieved goals surfacing in your mind. Building on this, Masicampo and colleagues ran an experiment in 2011 and found that once you’ve made a concrete plan for an unfinished task, your brain will temporarily let go of it—even if you never carry out the plan [6].
You’ve probably experienced something similar in daily life: you save a video or an article to “study later,” but it just sits there in your favorites collecting dust, and you never think of it again. That’s because the act of saving it already formed a plan—”I’ll look at it next time.” Your brain created a cognitive closure, so it stopped nagging you to finish it.
Next time you hit a problem with no solution, try writing it down and giving it a preliminary arrangement. It gives your brain a moment to breathe.
3. Allow everything to happen, and allow things to have no answer for now
The Tao Te Ching asks: “Who can make the muddy water clear by stilling it?” Stir a glass of muddy water, and it only gets murkier; let it sit undisturbed, and it slowly becomes clear.
The same is true of unresolved matters. Sometimes, letting go of your attachment to the outcome may actually bring you a better one.
Especially when you feel anxious, agitated, or overwhelmed with information, let yourself settle first. Stop acting blindly, and give yourself time to let things settle. Only with a clear mind can you see the essence of the problem—and avoid the bigger losses that come from rushing into action and decisions.
In closing
Many of the questions that make us anxious will never disappear. They simply change shape and walk with us through stretch after stretch of the road.
We always assume that life will truly begin once everything has settled. But the truth is, most of life is spent in an unresolved state.
As the poet Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet: Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.
May we all learn to live steadily—even in the midst of the unresolved.
