Uncertainty is Your Friend.

False certainty is a problem for out times.

1. A new lawyer learns not to predict outcomes.

When I was a new lawyer, Judges were gods to me. I feared them and I looked up to them. My first court appearance as a new lawyer was a simple trial-setting conference. Today, I would hardly think about it before I went, except to print a calendar from the computer and to look at it to see when I could do the trial. But on that day, over-and-over I rehearsed my little speech to the judge: "Your Honor, such-a-date and such-a-date would be acceptable."

I still remember the first time I heard a judge make a really, really bad ruling. I couldn’t believe that the judge had ruled as he had. I stood behind counsel table and literally stared at the judge with gaping mouth. When the judge saw my look of shock and horror, he snapped at me.

Eventually, bad rulings lost their power to shock me. Years ago, a former colleague of mine from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office became a court commissioner. I was then a criminal-defense attorney. We chatted, and she asked me what I found to be the greatest difference between being a prosecutor and being a criminal-defense attorney. I told her that I could no longer go to court and make a stupid argument and expect to win.

A recent court-appearance comes to mind. I made a motion for the return of my client’s property – his medical marijuana. The marijuana-trafficking charges against him had been dropped because the amount of marijuana was small, and because he could prove that he could lawfully possess the marijuana for his medical condition. The judge I was in front of was smart. I had written a good legal memorandum that explained why my client should get his marijuana back.

The prosecutor opposing me wrote a legal memorandum, too. I looked at it and almost sneered. Maybe when I read it the word "stupid" ricocheted in my brain. But however ill-reasoned I thought it was, still I knew that anything might happen. So I prepared arguments to counter the prosecutor’s arguments.

Which turned out to be a good thing. The judge was much taken with the prosecutor’s legal memorandum. It took all of my persistent arguments to persuade the judge to rule right.

2. Uncertainty in present times.

The point is that my professional experience disposes me to embrace the reality of uncertainty. This embrace of uncertainty distinguishes me from many people that I know.

For example, I know Democrats and Republicans who are already celebrating their side’s victory in November. I strongly support Barack Obama, and I’m hopeful for his reelection, but I really don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody can know what will happen in the next eleven months, and what happens might make all the difference..

3. Unpredictability in history.

History, even recent history, shows how uncertain the future is. On the night of September 10, 2001, what American went to sleep knowing that, the next morning, an obscure hater living in Afghanistan would murder three thousand Americans, and that his acts would lead to wars that would bring pain to many thousands of families?

And on September 10, 2001, the prevailing wisdom was that George W. Bush would be ejected from office at the end of his first term. The prevailing wisdom was that people were realizing that he was a friend of the rich, not of the middle class. Then the twin towers fell, and Americans rallied around our war-president.

And who knew that George W. Bush would use his new popularity to drive Democrats who rallied to him out of office? Or that, seven years later, Americans would reject Bush’s would-be Republican successor in no small part because of the perception that Bush had bungled the wars?

Going back further in history, to 1920, who knew that an obscure soldier from World War I would resurrect defeated Germany, drive the world again to war, and cause the murder of millions of innocents?

4. Ours is a predictability-culture.

Yet ours is a culture that touts predictability. People pay too much attention to gurus who purport to predict the ups and downs of stocks, for example. Over the long run, even the best of them do little better than a guess. Some of them, who have almost a worshipful following, make catastrophic predictions that are proven wrong almost immediately.

I personally am a sucker for people who foretell the political future, despite my claims to skepticism. Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney was considered the inevitable Republican nominee for president. But yesterday, in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich pulled off an incredible come-from-behind upset of Romney, based on Gingrich’s resourceful debate performances in the week leading up to the primary.

5. Managing the future.

We don’t only try to predict the future; we try to manage it. Some try to manage it with money. But money is un-reliable. First, you can’t count on it coming. Then, if you have it, you can’t count on keeping it. And even if you get it and keep it, it can’t guarantee a happy, predictable life; in fact, it can’t guarantee life. Some illnesses don’t yield to money. And a drunk driver can wipe out the benefits of a fortune’s worth of solid financial planning.

As a young man, I figured that my smarts and my work ethic would propel me to success. But I couldn’t manage my career even with these assets. My professional road has been much bumpier than I expected it to be.

Some people look for certainty in love. Only when I was young did I predict, unrealistically it turns out, fabulous relationships. When a relationship that I had put my hope in turned sour, my disappointment was great. Now, I don’t make predictions.

Power isn’t reliable, either. Ask Anthony Weiner, the New York Congressman with poor judgment about cameras and underwear. More tragically, think of John F. Kennedy. Or think of Winston Churchill, who was turned out of office at virtually the moment of his great triumph.

6. Religion and uncertainty.

Some who know me might predict that I will now give pious advice that only religion gives certainty. But certainty in religion is a manifestation of our too-certain times. I wish religious people were a little humbler about their knowledge of God than they are. I also was certain about religion; but then I had humility thrust upon me.

7. Embracing your inner I-don’t-know.

No, where I’m headed is this: we need to embrace uncertainty. There’s wisdom in that, the wisdom of reality.

This is easier for some than for others. My students in China, typically, had a low threshold for uncertainty. One morning, after outrageous classroom behavior, I ordered certain trouble-makers to my office that afternoon. I was intentional about delaying the meeting for several hours. That was because I knew that the delay, the not knowing what would happen, would drive these trouble-makers crazy. One of them was explicit. After class, he pleaded to know what penalty I would impose, because, he said, he couldn’t bear waiting to find out. At the appointed hour, I went easy on them. The punishment had been not knowing what the punishment would be.

Others embrace uncertainty more easily. I think that these are humble people. They don’t, against experience, arrogantly think that they know what the future will be.

If more people embraced uncertainty, maybe we would waste less time with false prophets – false prophets of religion, false prophets of finance, false prophets of politics, false prophets of love. Maybe we’d be a little smarter if we didn’t leap to conclusions about the future. Maybe a habit of mental restraint would lead to an admirable restraint in forming judgments. Maybe we’d begin to comprehend how much we don’t know, and we’d continue to gather facts and suspend judgment when, before, we would make an early, ill-formed judgment.

Knowing what we don’t know: there’s wisdom in that.