A close friend of mine recently underwent tests for leukemia. The most agonizing part of the ordeal, she said, was the week-long wait for the test results. A bad outcome she could learn to cope with, my friend said. It was the not knowing, the uncertainty, that was so difficult.

    “People feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur,” wrote Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert in a recent New York Times op-ed. “Most of us aren't losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don't know whether it will fall or not ─ and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they're uncertain about.”

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    我的一個好朋友最近接受了白血病測試。她對我說，最令人痛苦的折磨就是苦苦等待測試結(jié)果的那一周時間。我朋友說，她可能會學著直面壞結(jié)果。但真正讓人煎熬焦慮的是那種茫然的感覺。

    孟克(Edvard Munch)的名畫《吶喊》哈佛大學心理學家吉爾伯特(Daniel Gilbert)不久前在《紐約時報》(New York Times)的專欄中寫道，不知道要發(fā)生什么壞事比知道什么壞事要發(fā)生的感覺更糟。我們大多數(shù)人之所以會夜不能寐、抽煙發(fā)泄，并不是因為道瓊斯指數(shù)要再跌1000點，而是因為我們不知道道指會不會下跌-----不確定的感覺比不確定的事情本身更折磨人。