In recent weeks, I have devoted my time to studying for my master's degree's comprehensive exams. It's a pass-and-you-graduate or fail-and-you-don't graduate situation. It's also a show-everything-you've-learned-over-1.5-years-in-4-hours situation. No pressure, right? I can't even count the number of hours I've spent reading and rereading, and quizzing and being quizzed on inordinate amounts of material. (I still remember that the theory of planned behavior was introduced by Fishbein and Ajzen, despite it not being one of my main theories, and I blame Katie and Lincoln for that completely.)
In that time, I became reacquainted with uncertainty reduction theory. While it also wasn't on my list of main theories to focus on for comps, I've been thinking a lot about it lately. The basis of the theory is that people communicate in order to reduce the uncertainty between them. For example, a person may wish to know someone's political affiliation before beginning a tirade about an elected official, so they ask questions and look for reactions about political views before deciding how to approach the subject at hand. In fact, many communication scholars believe the whole purpose of communication is to negotiate difference—if we all thought and acted exactly the same, there would be no need to communicate.
I feel like my life is one big practice in uncertainty reduction. I'm a planner and I don't like uncertainty, and so my way of reducing the uncertainty in my life is to make a plan for how things will go. There have been many uncertain times in my life, and some have resolved exactly as I planned while others couldn't have turned out differently. While I strongly believe everything always works out for the best, I still struggle with uncertainty.
And yet, here I am again, faced with uncertainty—this time in the form of where I'm going to end up working, and the corollary to that: where I'm going to end up living. I hope both will be places I'll be for a good long time because I'm tired of moving or otherwise changing my life situation every few years. Stability is a good thing, and little by little, I'm working to reduce the little uncertainties in my life to achieve that.
2 comments:
So I've got the job thing figured out bit I'm tired of moving. Maybe we'll figure it out at the same time.
Interesting post. I feel very similarly about uncertainty. Our family is faced with uncertainty yet again--I guess it is just the nature of mortality. I struggle with the stressful feelings that being uncertain bring. It seems that Heavenly Father is often "blessing" me with opportunities to grow in that area. I'm trying to learn to enjoy the journey and not focus on the destination so much (at least in the short term). Good luck with the changes coming up in your life. Love you!
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