Things going wrong? Good for you.
The positive effects of crisis
A crisis is whenever our well-established expectations are violated. Your car breaking down, the presentation refusing to load in the meeting, . It doesn’t take much for the regular rhythm of life to be disrupted. The well-protected enclaves of order we create for ourselves work well most of the time, but a crisis reminds us that disorder is never far away.
The typical response when a crisis emerges is to ask ‘Why?’. Why did this have to happen now? Why is it happening to me? That of all the people in the world, it had to happen to you, feels grossly unjust. Since each of us thinks we are special, it doesn’t occur to us that we’re all targets for a completely random event.
‘Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure.
— Josh Wolfe
The Stoics go on about the same thing: imagine the worst and you won’t be taken aback when misfortune befalls you. Combine these strategies with well-timed gratitude, and you have a great recipe for getting through a crisis.
But what if we don’t just endure a crisis but come out stronger? Is it even possible? Is there some value in crisis? I certainly believe so. To begin with, a crisis is a much-needed reminder for us not to get complacent. Aim for the stars, sure, but don’t forget to get your insurance.
More importantly, however, a crisis is when we get to peek into the complex reality that underlies our daily, predictable lives. A crisis is when things suddenly don’t make sense. And they don’t make sense because they don’t conform to our existing mental models. Most people dismiss these as freak events and move on. However, the smart ones ask if this could happen, what else could happen?
It’s a cliché, but crises are in fact opportunities because randomness has a big role to play in innovation. Everything can’t be mapped out or calculated in advance. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin as a result of a mishap when some of his lab samples were ruined because he forgot to close the windows. As every school going kid knows, this mini-crisis led to one of the important discoveries ever.
A crisis is simply a random event which opens up possibilities which we had no way of knowing on our own. A problem is identified as such only when we face a crisis, otherwise we go on with our lives. And since progress is nothing but a progressive solving of problems, crises are the realengines of civilization.
The takeaway is that we must try to go past our emotional reaction to crises and appreciate the insights they can bring. We must learn from Edison who considered hundreds of failures a boon, because he got to understand what doesn’t work.
So take heed, and never let a good crisis go to waste.
