Losing my faith has made me more comfortable with ambiguity
I’m at a conference for parents with deafblind children, and the keynote speaker talked about ambiguity, and how it can lead to stress and anxiety. As part of his talk, the audience did an activity where we responded to statements using a Likert scale from 1 to 6 to determine how comfortable we are with ambiguity (see Roets & Van Hiel Scale, 2010).
The total possible score ranged from a minimum of 15 (i.e., most comfortable with ambiguity) to a maximum of 90 (i.e., least comfortable with ambiguity). My score was 66.
Here are the statements and my ratings (1 = “strongly disagree” to “6 = strongly agree”):
| I don’t like situations that are uncertain. | 5 |
| I dislike questions that could be answered in many different ways. | 4 |
| I feel uncomfortable when I don’t understand the reason why an event occurred in my life. | 2 |
| When I have made a decision, I feel relieved. | 5 |
| I dislike it when a person’s statement could mean many different things. | 5 |
| I do not usually consult many different opinions before forming my own views. | 1 |
| I find that a well-ordered life with regular hours suits my temperament. | 4 |
| I don’t like to go into a situation without knowing what I can expect from it. | 5 |
| I don’t like to be with people who are capable of unexpected actions. | 6 |
| I enjoy having a clear and structured mode of life. | 4 |
| I feel irritated when one person disagrees with what everyone else in the group believes. | 2 |
| I would quickly become impatient and irritated if I could not find a solution to a problem immediately. | 3 |
| When I am confronted with a problem, I’m dying to reach a solution very quickly. | 3 |
| I find that establishing a consistent routine enables me to enjoy life more. | 5 |
| I dislike unpredictable situations. | 5 |
| Total | 67 |
While doing the activity I realized that I would have put higher scores on many of the questions if had done this before my faith transition, which leads me to believe that my faith transition has made me more comfortable with ambiguity. Here are a few examples.
I value dissent
About five years ago I took the CliftonStrengths Strengths Finder test, and my second highest talent (after “Learner”) was “Harmony.” This is how CliftonStrengths defines the “Harmony” strength:
People exceptionally talented in the Harmony theme look for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement.
Well, a lot has changed in five years. I should take the test again and compare results, because I don’t identify with this description anymore. I value dissent over consensus, because I don’t find consensus to be a reliable way to determine truth. That’s why I put a low score for the statement about feeling “irritated when one person disagrees with what everyone else in the group believes.”
I value being wrong
I put a score of 1 for the statement “I do not usually consult many different opinions before forming my own views,” because I believe that the best way to get an accurate picture of reality is by diligently searching to figure out what you might be wrong about.
It’s like the scientific method: you don’t try to prove your hypothesis. You try to disprove it. You don’t try to validate your beliefs; you challenge and test them to see whether they hold any water.
I don’t need to ascribe meaning to things that happen in my life
I put a 2 for “I feel uncomfortable when I don’t understand the reason why an event occurred in my life.” One of the main tenets of Buddhism is that we create unnecessary suffering for ourselves because we try to assign meaning to everything that happens to us. I believe this is true.
I now think of these events as pieces coming onto the screen in a Tetris game. When an L shaped piece comes on the screen, for example, my goal is to fit the L shape in the best way possible with the other pieces. It doesn’t help me to wonder why it was an L shaped instead of a square. In fact, if I spent too much time thinking about it, I might get distracted from my real goal, which is to place it in the right spot. (Thanks to Noah Rasheta and his Secular Buddhism podcast for this analogy.)