Tag: social distancing

Dangerous Thoughts

“I think it will be all right. It seems safe enough.”

The Surgeon General of the United States is concerned about the next couple of weeks determining our ability to flatten the curve and relieve the pressure on our emergency services. He is asking for greater compliance with the best practices they have established for our mutual safety. This means following them consistently, even when we don’t think we need to. Masks are the latest requests, with compliance not so good. So, it is timely to refresh our understanding of what leads us to make exceptions and not follow best practices, especially when they are being imposed on us. Many of us rebel against that.

While there are several lines of reasoning that tempt us to not comply, they all lead to the thought, “I think it will be alright. It seems safe enough.” We can listen for that thought, and ones like it. When we think like that, we are trusting our own judgment instead of people whose judgment is based on far more data than we have.

“I thought it would be alright.” Painfully, as a psychologist I have heard this expressed by many professionals who knowingly did not follow professional boundaries and best practices. They thought things would be alright because that is what they wanted to believe. But things went bad and out of their control. People got hurt.

“I think it will be alright” has led to many disasters that would not have occurred if people had followed guidelines instead of their own judgment. Lest we think we are immune to this kind of thinking, among the disasters due to not following guidelines was the Space Shuttle explosion. These were intelligent people. So also, were the people who died on Mt. Everest from not heeding the 2pm rule of the mountain, to turn back toward camp at that time regardless of how close you are to the summit. Some of the climbers convincing themselves and each other that it would be alright. There hadn’t been bad weather in a long time. An unexpected snowstorm came up and many people died. Others were put at risk to try to rescue them.

Tragically, a community choir recently encountered unnecessary illness and death. They thought it would be safe to get together and sing to lift their spirits because there had been no reported cases of COVID-19 infection in their county. “It hasn’t happened around here. I think it will be alright.” This is called distance bias. Even though it has happened elsewhere, if it hasn’t happened around here, we don’t take the threat as applying to our location. That was there; this is here, the reasoning goes. Well, it did happen to this choir. With this virus, it can happen anywhere.

Of course our minds will want to find exceptions to make things easier, get us what we want or not make us look foolish wearing a mask, for instance. Let us be vigilant, recognize when these thoughts when they occur and not follow them. Thank others for doing the same and encourage those that don’t.

The Sidewalk Dance of Social Distancing

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Going for a walk in our neighborhood, it is delightful to engage in social distancing with other walkers and joggers. People move onto the grass to give safe passage to the walkers they meet. The walkers wave in thanks. Joggers will go into the street’s bike path until the walkers have passed. For many, this virus has brought an increase is situational awareness and collaboration.

The skills of situational awareness and collaboration will serve us well when we again share the roads with many other drivers. Driving is the largest scale cooperative activity we engage in. From the air over a large city, we can see it for the beautiful collaboration that it is. We can also see the few people who make things unpredictable and unsafe. While they are the exceptions, when we are driving, we can stay preoccupied with them.

Collaborative driving involves knowing where you are in the flow of traffic and what your role is at any given time. It only works by following the rules and best practices, just like coronavirus safety. This is a sacred responsibility. Just as with social distancing, with driving, someone’s life is in your hands while your life in in theirs. Sometimes the thing to do is yield to another driver. Other times it is to speed up to make room for them merging. At all times, it is to be calm, aware and in the spirit of wishing everyone well.

Many of us are hoping we can come out of this crisis able to live the awareness of mutual vulnerability and mutual responsibility far better than we did before. Driving is one arena for doing that.

The sidewalk dance of social distancing is a thing of beauty and joy. Driving that way is even more so.