The SOAR Library

Why do we expect the worst? Freud suggested we expect the worst as a way of preventing it from happening. He said the problem with trauma is, that the first time we have one, we never had one before. It comes as if “out of the blue”. Being a complete surprise (since we never had one before), it crushes us.

We feel we cannot allow ourselves to be crushed like that again, so we brace ourselves; we EXPECT it to happen. That way, at least, we won’t be surprised.

But that’s not enough. We don’t want to just be braced for disaster; we want to prevent disaster. So we turn to what we, usually at a young age, think of as science: cause and effect. We know that when something happens, something caused it. So what caused the traumatic experience?

We begin searching for what happened JUST before the trauma hit, and we remember we were happy, we were relaxed, we thought nothing could go wrong, and . . . WHAM! It hit. Suddenly, we have an eureka moment. We realized we have broken the code. We know what causes awful things: it is thinking they won’t happen; it is being happen; it is being relaxed.

The Solution

Don’t be happy. Don’t be relaxed. And always think the worst is going to happen. Those three things are what - we think - inoculates us. Pessimism - or even expecting the very worst - stands between us and disaster.

Give up your pessimism, give up your expectation your plane will crash, give up your expectation of some awful disease, and it will happen for sure, and not only that, very soon if not immediately.

When I was in the Air Force in Germany back in the 1960s, we flew our fighters across the Mediteranian to Libya every six months to practice shooting the guns, firing rockets, and dropping bombs down in the Libyan desert where, if we missed the target, no harm was done. This may seem odd since Colonel Qadhafi is in power there, but in the sixties, it was more like Saudi Arabia. It was a kingdom ruled by King Idris, who allow the United States to maintain an air base near Tripoli.

There was a powerful radio station in Egypt broadcasting hate for Jews, and though Jews had lived in Libya for generations under pre-WW II Italian influence there, things were getting difficult for them. Still, just as in Germany before WW II, many thought things would get better. Some left the country, and transferred their property for a token sum to relatives or friends, expecting someday to return and reclaim their property and thought life would go on there as before.

Some of the Air Force personnel station at the air base rented houses from a batchelor named Mamus Halfon who was, so to speak, “holding the bag”, these properties that had been transferred to him in their owners absence. As time went on, Mamus ended up with millions of dollars worth of property, and felt trapped in Libya by what had been entrusted to him. If he left, the property would be transferred to the government.

When I was there periodically for gunnery training, I used to visit Mamus, who kept a tiny shop in Suk el Turk, the old Turkish market.

Mamus told me about “The Hand of Fatima” (in Hebrew, hamesh hand, or Hand of Miriam, see http://www.luckymojo.com/hamsahand.html ) which is supposed to ward off evil. Mamus told me he believed in the “evil eye” which, according to him, watched and waited for a person to proclaim their good luck, or their expectation of everything working of well. He told me his friend across the walkway didn’t believe in the evil eye. He said his friend once remarked, “All the other Jews in the market have had rocks thrown through the windows of their shops; I’m lucky.” Mamus said the very next night his window was broke, and claimed that was proof that saying everything is fine causes disaster.

Obviously we know - logically - this is not true, be emotionally, it may be different. I mention it here because I’m quite sure this plays a role. I am sure that many people I have worked with of fear of flying are worried that - if they don’t worry about the plane crashing - that that will cause it to. Thus, to rid themselves of fear of flying seems reckless.

In some cases this operates consciously. In other cases, it is operative, but not at a conscious level. This means, after a person learns the Strengthening Exercise and practices it, there is a nagging feeling that to fell confident about flying is - itself - unwise.

So What Shall We Do?

I’m not so sure it is a good idea to try to swim upstream again centuries of tradition or superstition, particularly when it is reinforced by our own experience, experience like that of Mamus’ friend. So why not keep a worry? But how is just one worry enough.

When the Intercontinental Hotels build one of their hotels in Africa, they had a problem with their waiters. Tradition was that if a man cut his fingernails, he would die. The men in that area never cut their fingernails. Though these extremely long and clawlike fingernails were standard in the area, Intercontinental Hotels catered to Westerners, who, when dining, we taken aback by waiters with foot-long fingernails.

So the hotel manager consulted a local shaman. The shaman told the manager that the men could cut their fingernails so long as they left on uncut. The waiters we told authoritatively by the shaman that one uncut nail would be more than adequate.

So The Moral Of The Story Is . . .

One worry is enough. Pick you favorite. As you know, images of one terrible disaster will only take you, on a scale of zero to ten, to a two. Two is no big deal, and is a small price to pay for safety.