The mistake is thinking that there can be an antidote to the uncertainty.

Levithan’s line challenges the common desire for certainty as a cure-all. It suggests that the real error is not feeling unsure, but believing uncertainty is a problem that can be eliminated by the right plan, relationship, philosophy, or reassurance. Read this way, the quote reframes uncertainty as a permanent condition of being alive—especially in love, identity, and growing up, themes that recur in Levithan’s fiction. The “antidote” metaphor implies we treat doubt like a toxin; the sentence counters that impulse, urging acceptance of ambiguity and the courage to act without guarantees.