I spent decades in boardrooms where the pressure was to DO something. Make the call, launch the initiative, give the board answers we didn’t have yet. The people who cracked under that pressure weren’t less intelligent. They just couldn’t tolerate the feeling of not knowing. So they’d react, pivot, and or overcorrect.  They’d do anything to discharge the anxiety of uncertainty.

The ones who succeeded? They could sit with discomfort long enough to see clearly.

Right now, we’re all sitting with a lot of discomfort.

The news cycle delivers fresh chaos hourly.  More threats of conquering peaceful sovereign countries.  More riots, brutality and wars seem to be taking place. Your adult kids are stressed about their jobs, their mortgages, and their kids’ schools. Your aging parents need more help than they’re admitting. Everything seems so much more personal now, not abstract.

And our natural human instinct — honed by years of solving problems — is to DO something. Check the news again. Refresh the portfolio. Call your financial advisor. Send that text to your daughter. Research senior living options at 2 am.

Anything but sit with the feeling itself.

The French mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

He wasn’t talking about meditation retreats. He was talking about our desperate need to avoid our own minds when they have nothing to occupy them.

We’ve built entire industries around this avoidance. Smartphones deliver infinite distraction on demand. We can scroll through market updates, news alerts, health articles, and political commentary from the moment we wake until we pass out with our devices still glowing beside us.

But here’s what decades of experience taught me:

A distracted mind makes worse decisions than a bored mind.

Boredom — that uncomfortable state of having nothing to do — isn’t the problem. It’s the diagnostic. It reveals how addicted we’ve become to constant mental motion, how little tolerance we have for simply being present with uncertainty.

And in times of genuine chaos? That intolerance becomes dangerous.

What Actually Helps

I’m not suggesting you ignore real threats or stop preparing for genuine risks. I’m suggesting you stop confusing anxiety-driven activity with strategic response.

-Your portfolio dropping 8% might require action. Or it might not. But you can’t think clearly about which while your nervous system is screaming.

-Your child’s marriage struggles need your wisdom, not your 11 pm text spiral of unsolicited advice.

-Your own health concerns deserve attention, but not the 3 am WebMD rabbit hole that turns a headache into a brain tumour.

Next time you feel that spike of unease — whether from a news alert, a market dip, a family worry, or just waking up with your mind racing — try this:

Pause for sixty seconds before reaching for your phone

Just sit there. Notice the discomfort. It won’t kill you.

It might feel like it will, but it won’t.

Take three slow breaths. Not because it’s spiritual. Because it’s physiological. You can’t make clear decisions when your nervous system is in fight-or-flight mode.

Ask yourself: “What decision needs to be made right now?” Not today. Not this week. Right now, in this moment.

Usually? The answer is nothing.

The chaos will still be there in an hour. The market will still be volatile. Your kids will still have their struggles. But you’ll be thinking instead of reacting.

Why This Matters Now

Everyone around you is anxious. Your spouse. Your friends. Your kids. Your siblings. Your neighbours. Your colleagues. Every person you bump into, chat with or casually tip your hat to. 

Anxiety is contagious. So is steadiness.

When you demonstrate that you can sit with uncertainty without immediately discharging it into frantic activity, you give others permission to do the same. You model that strategic patience isn’t a weakness. It’s wisdom.

The people who navigate turbulent times well aren’t the ones who react fastest. They’re the ones who can tolerate discomfort long enough to distinguish between genuine threats and anxiety-driven noise.

That tolerance is a muscle. And like any muscle, you build it through practice.

Start small.

Red light? Don’t reach for your phone. Look out the window. Notice the sky. Breathe.

Waiting room at the doctor’s office? Don’t fill the space with email. Just sit there.

Lying awake at 3 am? Don’t grab your device. Watch your thoughts race around without engaging them. You’re not your thoughts. You’re the consciousness observing them.

This isn’t about becoming zen. It’s about staying sane.

The world will keep serving up chaos at an ever-increasing pace. We can count on that. Uncertainty isn’t going away any time soon.

But your relationship to it can change.

And that changes everything.