There is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.
– Chris Hadfield, Astronaut
Intro #
Chris Hadfield gave a Ted Talk that you can watch about what he learned from going blind in space.
In the Ted Talk I learned about his trip in space and how NASA and its astronauts approach space travel and the dangers that lurk within. Many things can go wrong in the void of space and only by understanding each danger can they truly reduce the life threatening risks out there.
The Quote #
In the Ted Talk he says what I think is a most curious thing.
There is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.
Huh? Interesting. I misremembered the quote when I thought to write this blog post and instead of the word ‘problem’ my mind used the word ‘situation’.
Is my misremembered version wrong? No, I don’t think so.
There is no situation so bad that you can’t make it worse.
“Wow!” I thought. That rings so deeply true. In such a precarious world there are situations that can be entirely dangerous and even so…there are things we can do to make them worse, either through action or inaction.
I moved on from that dreadful thought. I thought myself largely safe because I try to stay away from bad situations. Staying away from them altogether might be easier to do than trying to fix them only after they come up. That gave me some relief in my life.
A Dreadful Thought #
One day the following occurred to me…
There is no situation that you can’t make worse.
Oh no! Do you see my fear growing? In other words:
There is no situation, no matter how good, that you can’t mess up and make worse or bad.
That flies in the face of many reassuring quotes I’ve seen online that attempt to assure me that certain things are set in the stone tablet of fate, unchangeable and meant to be.
This sort of realization can be disastrous to discover. Why? It puts the onus on the individual to try to actively manage the risks in their life. And even when actively managing the risk, just like in space travel, things beyond our control can result in disaster anyway.
In essence, regardless of the effort we put into anything, we aren’t guaranteed success.
I like and I dislike Chris Hadfield and NASA’s quote. It forces me to contend with how effectively or ineffectively I use my own autonomy. It also makes me think of another quote that I extracted from the Terminator series in my own words:
There is no fate but what I make.
Empowering and debilitating all at once. I can steer my own ship in life! And so, equivalently, I can crash my own ship in life!
Yes, there will be storms that will crash my ship no matter how hard I try. Equally, there will be sunny days that, no matter how wonderful they are, will not prevent me from burning my ship’s sails with tiki torches or from eating all my food while I and hand it out to all the friends and guests I invite over.
And then, there is the glimmer of hope.
There is no potential situation, no matter how bad, that you can’t make it better.
Is this one as true as Chris Hadfield’s quote? Maybe. I’m not sure yet. I’m still exploring that.
The phrase ‘potential situation’ is key here. Once certain situations manifest it might actually be impossible to remediate or make them better. At that point maybe all that can be done might be to not make them worse.
Before the situation is made manifest we can attempt to avoid it or improve it. Hence the word ‘potential’ being key. You can imagine that if you go snowboarding, deciding to wear a helmet will prevent a fall from being disastrous by protecting our head. It might not fully prevent the injury, but it might make the injury a minor one rather than a possibly fatal one.
If you’re snowboarding and you fall without a helmet, it’s already too late to go get your helmet before you hit the ground. Why? Obviously, because you’re already falling! Maybe you can put your hands down in a way to brace the fall, or try to avoid head impact, but you will never be able to get your helmet in the middle of the fall. The time to act is before the bad situation occurs with preventive action.
It means having some capacity to look into the future and anticipate a bad scenarios and taking action ahead of time. That action can be mean having conversations of what we anticipate and can lead to things like buying a helmet or deciding to not go snowboarding at all.
For the time being, my personalized version of the quote is below:
There is no situation so bad that you can’t make it worse.
There is no situation so good that you can’t mess it up.