Better Be A Slave Than Sorry

Yes, we can be too safe, and it’s showing right now.

A lost boy

The other day I walked through my German hometown, and there were police everywhere. I saw them stopping people and asking questions. Later I was told that officers had been looking for a small boy. They found him at a brooklet in the city center. Maybe he was playing there with one of those tiny paper boats.

His parents had lost sight of him and raised the alarms.

Now let me clarify, if I had lost a child in the city center — even though it’s not an enormous city — I wouldn’t have been exactly calm. But then there is the fact that a hundred police officers spent multiple hours looking for a boy who turned out to be enjoying himself. Who really had a bad time were the parents.

We have become too safe, and it’s taking joy away from our lives.

We don’t know what danger looks like anymore

Yes, the boy’s life could have been at risk — but it wasn’t. What we often cannot wrap our heads around is the concept of likelihood. When we hear: »There is a small chance that something could go wrong«, our minds only hear: »Something could go wrong.« And often we interpret this as »something will go wrong.«

Did you know that over 150,000 Americans die of a heart attack each year?

What if I tell you, even in your twenties, you could die from a heart attack within the next couple of years, months, minutes? It doesn’t feel great, does it? Yet, it’s very unlikely. And there are factors in and out of your control to bring the chance very close to zero.

What’s on our mind controls how we make decisions. And in our hyper-safe times, we have nothing but danger on our mind. Simultaneously, there is less dangerous than ever before in our lives.

Do you believe that people a thousand years ago worried about their calory intake? Do you think they were using seat-belts on their horses? Would you bet they took vitamin pills?

No, they broke their foot while hunting and thought: »I guess that’s it for me. Hospitals are not a thing yet…«

Truth is, our life expectancy in many countries never was this high before in the history of mankind. We are living the safest lives literally ever. And we couldn’t be more scared.

Science is coming up with more findings of ways you could die as quickly as they come up with ways to save your life. Our minds don’t see both parts as equally relevant for survival, though.

Meanwhile, the ancient way to cope with stress, namely faith, we have replaced with psychological mechanisms like ›positive thinking‹, repression and compensation. While faith is trusting that the positive possibilities will manifest, we often rather assume the negative outcome and try to render it impossible.

We don’t know what real danger looks like, so we overreact.

We don’t feel alive, so we risk our life

Since we rarely end up in actual life-threatening situations anymore, we also often go into the other direction, especially when young. We are seeking the excitement that our seat-belt- and airbag-lives are missing. So we end up taking drugs, do extreme sports and other dangerous activities that put us in danger needlessly.

Our great safety in these cases ends up putting us at risk.

There is something good about experiencing an actual threat. It puts into perspective how dangerous everyday life really is(not). And it makes us realize our mortality on a deeper level. Many are missing these experiences, and it shows throughout their entire personality.

Please don’t take this as instructions to put your life in danger, by the way. You might die.

Yes, we can be too safe.

I recently had to use thumbtacks to hang up a poster. (No, I’m not a teenage girl.) On the packaging, it literally said: »Don’t swallow!«

Safety equals comfort — and comfortable people don’t live up to their potential, only to other’s expectations.

We lead our lives in very fixed tracks. Everything we consume has been tested, approved by the FDA (whatever that means), comes with a manual and curated under the assumption that we are blatantly stupid. It makes us safer, but it makes us too careful.

We can not only die but also ruin our lives forever thanks to social media and handy cameras. The wrong picture pops up on a search engine. Your life is over. We are hyper-aware of threats and also have to justify our every action in front of the entire planet’s population.

All of this comfort is nothing but a golden prison-cell.

If you or your children died at a young age in medieval times, that was no surprise to anyone. If today you or your children die at a young age, that’s your fault. Safety equals comfort — and comfortable people don’t live up to their potential, only to other’s expectations.

So don’t always let the argument count: »Better safe than sorry.« Hell yeah, we can be too safe. This is life, not a race to the top of the high-score of who gets the oldest. I mean, how do you justify leaving your apartment every day? You could get hit by a bus! We need to feel alive again.

I only hear: »Better slave than sorry.« I don’t want to be a slave, I’d rather be sorry — possibly.