Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

— Tennessee Williams

The only thing that I am certain of is that we are surrounded by uncertainty.  We collect stories of terrible things that have happened to people and then we try our best to protect ourselves from these horrors by engineering our lives to avoid them.  That’s the phenomenon that occurs with the news broadcasts.  We say that we want stories that reflect the positive in our world and the good in people, but we don’t really react to these stories as we do to stories of bad luck, or murder and mayhem.

You may disagree with me, but I think that part of the fascination with these stories is that as we watch/listen, we either come up with a plan to avoid that horror for ourselves in the future OR we create a story about why we’re immune to what happened to them.

When cancer or Alzheimer’s or heart disease or diabetes strikes near to us, it makes us very uncomfortable and we do our best to re-create our previous state of comfort – AKA denial.  We do the best we can to create a story that “justifies” why that person has cancer and we won’t.  “Oh, they smoked OR hung out with smokers OR ate too much of the wrong stuff (and we don’t eat that much) OR…”  We try to create a difference that protects us.  It’s just our way of pretending that we have control.

I’m Not Really in Charge

The more horrific the potential event, the more we do whatever we can to establish control for that event.  Me?  I like to fly in the exit row.  (I’m good in emergencies.  I’ll be a better person to make sure that we evacuate efficiently.)  I get a pillow to filter out the toxins caused by the burning up of the interior of the plane and I wear natural fibers that have less of a tendency to melt into the skin and/or catch fire.  Of course, if we go SPLAT, it won’t really matter.

As a nation, we spend a lot of time and money trying to do the same thing.  Richard Reid, the failed shoe bomber has got us removing our shoes before boarding a plane… just in case.  As a matter of fact, Levitt and Dubner argue in Superfreakonomics that Reid actually succeeded – admittedly not as he planned, but he did terrorize us into implementing this practice, which according to their calculations costs us approximately 1065 years of effort each year.  That is the power of terrorism.  The “apparent” uncertainty has us changing our habits and creating ways to protect ourselves from the most recent horror until the next horror shows up on our doorstep.

Not to belabor the obvious, but we really want to be in control and we really aren’t.

A Little Help From My Friends

I wish there was a method that I could give you to get things “under control.”  If I could, I’d be on Oprah and rich as her too.  (Ok, enough about me.)  But it isn’t hopeless.  Psychology shows that whatever a person faces, they do much better coping when they have friends who can share the burden with them.  Sometimes, sharing means providing care-taker relief services so that the care-taker can have some time for themselves.  Sometimes, sharing means listening to the story as many times as needed for the person facing the challenge to feel heard.  Sometimes, it means just calling to check in and be available.

The lesson here is that although you may not be in control, you are not alone.  There are people out there willing and able to provide support.  Many of us never dreamed that we’d be “here” (wherever that is), but wherever here is, your friends are here with you.  Reach out.  Ask for help.  OR  Reach out and offer help.  Either way, you win.