A friend reminded me of a life lesson we could all use in facing our environmental symptoms. In her words:

“I never had a more optimistic outlook than when things were going to shit.”

Her context: A crippling disease

She got a disease that would take a lot of work to heal. She probably wouldn’t die, but could suffer lifelong symptoms. Her clothing and showers hurt where her skin had blistered. She took medication so toxic that the hospital gave her a special toilet to collect her waste to keep it separate from the city plumbing.

Her response: To dig deeper

It sounded brutal and traumatic, but she said that having to work and being part of a team working together gave her optimism. She could have resigned or given up, but instead she dug deeper.

Hearing her response to this debilitating adversity, I knew I had to post about it here. Is it not obvious what we could learn from her?

We can’t control things outside our control, but we can control how we respond. I guess most people have resigned themselves to acting as if individual action doesn’t matter, but it does. We can make a difference. To believe otherwise is a failure of imagination.

Podcast guest Sebastian Junger‘s book Tribe talks about this effect, how people find the greatest reward in times of hardship, when we have to treat each other as humans instead of by status.

• ← Is most of the economy transaction costs?
• Measuring greenhouse emissions looks like a distraction. Extraction and introduction into the biosphere seems more relevant. →