Crisis Management

Recently, I did something that can best be summed up as not "thoroughly thought through".

You know the standard operating procedure. When an idea flashes by your mind, you're supposed to evaluate the consequences, and then sleep on it. If you still see things the same way a day later, a week later, then do it. Impulse is often hazardous!

It's not that gut instinct is always wrong. In fact, it's often right. The problem is, gut instinct does not illuminate the best way you can go about doing something. It merely shows you the shortest, most obvious path to your objective.

This quick and dirty route, by its very nature, misses out on the finer nuances or considerations that any person with a positive EQ score would pick up on. Even if you think you're instinctively savvy, trust me, hindsight will put you in your place.

But life doesn't quite play out by the book, does it? Many times we find ourselves pressed to make the best choice in a limited time, or else face paralysis by indecision.

And you will inevitably make a mistake, or perhaps simply not make the best call about something. Then, voila! The mistake may even blossom into a full-blown Richter 8.0 Crisis.

I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed at first, for crises tend to do that. Initially, my mind did nothing but try to grapple with just how big the mess is, and I entertained a thousand useless questions like why did I do it that way and how could I not see a better choice.

But it got better the moment I cleanly excised all the emotional responses, and instead just focused on what I could do next. Given that the ogre of a Crisis had just hit puberty right before my eyes, what options were open to me, what possible courses of action might actually remedy the problem?

And then things got better.

This time around, I spent but an hour anguishing about the Crisis before I sprung into action. I'm improving, after all. One of the small graces in life, it seems.