Why uncertainty feels like a threat to your brain #psychology #evolution

Evolutionarily, it's been a very helpful emotion. You sense something unfamiliar, and it's helpful to stay alive when— if you associate unfamiliarity with danger. It helps you avoid potentially doing something that'll harm you. If I find myself in an unfamiliar place, unfamiliar surroundings, my guard's gonna go up, and I'll be more careful as I move about those surroundings. That is an instance where having that fear is still helpful. Where it can be limiting or harmful even is When these unknown opportunities pop up that are unfamiliar, that could potentially, if taken, really have a positive impact on your life, and yet you continue to avoid them because they are unfamiliar, because what's on the other side of making that decision is unknown. And so that is really what the book focuses on, is providing a framework for people to kind of evaluate these, these unknown opportunities, these unfamiliar opportunities. You can't blindly say yes to every opportunity that comes along. your way. That's, that's not helpful. That definitely sets you up for disappointment in a lot of instances. But if you have a way of thoughtfully understanding, you know, exactly what the opportunity is and evaluating whether or not saying yes is appropriate in a particular instance, that is extremely valuable. That can help people overcome this innate instinctive fear that they have to just say, no, I'm going to continue on this comfortable, familiar path. If they open themselves up, puts them in position to really perhaps change, change their lives for the better.