When we’re in a crisis, or when we’re anxious, we work hard to make things normal. 

One of my favourite shows, M*A*S*H, was all about that. 

The setting was a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War — and all the chaos, trauma and exhaustion that went along with it. But the message was that – despite everything – people still move on with their lives. They tell jokes under pressure. They pick fights. They play pranks. They fall in love and out of love again. 

The camp psychiatrist, Sidney Freedman, helped bring that sense of normalcy. In season four, and again in the finale, he says something I’ve repeated often since I first heard it: “Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice — pull down your pants and slide on the ice.” I use that line when it’s clear that things are out of my control. When I know that thinking harder only makes things harder.  

And I’ve been saying it a lot lately. 

Because these are unprecedented times. The certainty all of us grew up with – political certainty, economic certainty, alliances and relationships – is being torn apart. A lot of it has to do with the chaos in the US, but the ripple effects are everywhere. And when this volatility first showed up, organizations paused. Leaders hesitated. Governments waited. People were scared, and caution felt smart.

Intolerance of Uncertainty

Psychologists call this intolerance of uncertainty. When the future feels unclear, anxiety rises and people delay decisions. They gather more information. They wait for things to clear up. But intolerance of uncertainty has limits.

Because we can’t stay frozen forever.

As uncertainty drags on, avoidance becomes costly. Stress builds. Decision fatigue sets in. Research shows that action — even imperfect action — reduces anxiety more effectively than waiting for things to clear up. Indecision doesn’t help. As those great Canadian philosophers – Rush – put it, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” 

We saw this during the pandemic. Lockdowns made us feel scared and anxious. Entire sectors shut down. Many people worried the economy would collapse. Some businesses failed. And yet, others adapted quickly and actually gained ground.

For example, Airbnb leaned into longer stays, domestic trips, and remote work. Best Buy moved fast on curbside pickup, delivery, and virtual tech support, acting more like a logistics and services company than a traditional retailer. Nintendo leaned into accessible, shared entertainment at home and reached people who had never thought of themselves as gamers. None of these companies waited for certainty. They accepted uncertainty as the operating condition and changed how they worked. And they’re still ahead of the game today because of it. 

People do not need to know how things will turn out in order to function. They need reasons to act today.

As a species, we are incredibly adaptable. Psychology backs this up. Research on hedonic adaptation shows that we adapt to disruption faster than we think we will. Daniel Gilbert’s work on affective forecasting shows that people consistently overestimate how long uncertainty will derail them. 

Trauma psychology makes the same point from another angle. Viktor Frankl, writing in Man’s Search for Meaning, said that people survive prolonged uncertainty not by finding certainty, but by finding purpose and routine. People do not need to know how things will turn out in order to function. They need reasons to act today.

We’re seeing this very thing happening in Canada right now.

Despite tariff threats, trade tension, and a firehose of misinformation, we are actually in decent shape. Economic activity is expanding. Employers added more jobs than expected. Trade is diversifying. GDP is growing modestly. People keep spending. Wages are rising in real terms. Inflation sits close to the 2 percent target, right where policy wonks want it.

That doesn’t mean anything is easy. It means we’ve pushed through the wall of uncertainty and landed on the other side, where people rebuild a sense of normalcy inside imperfect conditions. 

There’s a lesson here for us communicators.

I’m not saying we should ignore anxiety or talk past what people feel. Affordability is real. Fatigue is real. But communicators cannot live in fear. We have a duty to anchor ourselves in the totality of what is actually happening. And what is happening is that – despite it all – people continue to move forward.

The organizations that gained ground during the pandemic didn’t shy away from risk. They saw the moment they were in and changed how they worked. That same approach applies now. We can’t wait for certainty to return, because it might not. So, work inside uncertainty.

For all of us, that means helping leaders stop bracing and start navigating. It means telling the truth about challenges while also creating momentum and direction. It means helping organizations surf the conditions they are in instead of being drowned.

Or, as Sidney Freedman might say, sometimes you just gotta pull down your pants and slide on the ice.