"It Could Be Worse" and Why That's a Problem

I started this week working on a post about "loss aversion" and how it keeps us stuck. The real losses in Los Angeles, following so many losses last year from other fires, storms, floods, landslides, and heat waves, derailed me.

Large swaths of an iconic postcard city that has been the backdrop for many of our wildest dreams on fire. Because of the winds, because of the lack of rain and dry brush, because there wasn't enough water pressure in the hydrants, because we were unprepared, because, because…

Friends and family call and write to ask how we are doing in our corner of California. "Are you safe?" they ask. "I'm so glad you are not in Los Angeles," they say.

What is growing inside me

I am lucky and safe in San Francisco. We have been having diamond-clear days.

The thousands of families who evacuated before their homes burned are lucky, too. It could have been worse.

Whatever happens to us, we instinctively seek reference points to make sense of this nutty world. The "it could have been worse" scenario makes us see our circumstances as less negative.

But here is the thing: this reframing that our brains do without us even noticing is a sticky trap. "It could be worse" thinking makes it easier to ignore or diminish our pain and problems. It helps us rationalize inaction. We become bystanders, convinced that our small efforts won't make a difference.

I know because I have normalized so many of the recent disasters. At night, I read about them on my iPad. I think, "How sad." Then I go to sleep. The farther away they are happening, the easier it is to do that. The next day, I go on with my life.

In his Substack article “The LA Fires and the Big Bang," environmentalist Bill McKibben discusses the conflict between more and less knowledge and how denialism and disinformation are, in his opinion, creating a "willful loss of intelligence."

The LA Fires and the Big Bang

"The great casualties in California today are people and animals and buildings—homes, synagogues, schools, libraries. The great casualty in the month's ahead may be the insurance system of the world's fifth biggest economy, which is going to buckle under the strain of these losses. But the steady loss of intelligence in our nation and our world worries me the most. Even as the stakes grow higher, we're losing our hard-won ability to understand the world around us."

McKibben has been shouting to the world about climate change for a long time. I interviewed him when The End of Nature was published back in 1989. It was the first book about global warming for a general audience. He told me at that time that he would not have more than one child because of climate change. I thought–and may have told him–that I did not think one person's sacrifice would make any difference.

Thirty-plus years later, he is still writing about impossible-to-fix problems. I could have read his piece, turned the iPad off, and slept.

Not this time.

[K]Now you: Where we do the work

As of this morning, the Santa Ana winds are dying down, and firefighters are making progress. The fires will be controlled. The adding up costs, the work to rebuild, and the political blame game will get in the way of moving as fast as we should. It will be long and painful to watch.

All of that will happen without me having to lift a finger beyond the donation we have made. Mindset shifts don't happen because you will them to. They happen when you train your mind to react differently to what’s happening around you. As a result, our habits also change. It’s a process of taking small, consistent steps

This morning, I wrote 3 actions for myself.

• Support organizations that advocate for education. Specifically, today, I donated to the American Institute for Boys and Men.

• Volunteer. Quitting my corp job has left me with more time, the most valuable resource I lacked. I am currently researching opportunities in Washington, DC (for once our move is complete).

• Read less fiction. My love of reading is partly driven by the respite it brings from reality, and my reading list is 90% fiction. I will (try to) flip that balance and, in the process, better educate myself, and I will start by rereading The End of Nature.

Please donate to the recovery effort (research first and beware of scammers), join a community effort, or send someone a note saying you are thinking about them.

Next week, I will come back to loss aversion.