One Small Voice: Duress can cause awful behavior

by Lynn Mandaville

Could Be Worse by James Stevenson was published a lifetime ago (my grown children’s lifetimes ago) in 1977.  A Reading Rainbow selection on PBS, this wonderful story is a lesson in measuring the degrees of horribleness in any life situation.

The main character is Grandpa, a seemingly dull old man whose daily routine includes the same breakfast every day followed by the same boring routine.  No matter what horror befalls him (a lost slipper) or his grandkids, his response is always “Could be worse.”

Grandpa is finally asked to tell the kids HOW it could be worse, when a favorite sneaker has a hole in it, or a kite gets stuck in a tree.

So grandpa tells them, in delightful detail, how life could be worse… if a giant gorilla were to throw a one ton snowball at them, or if a giant bird of prey were to swoop down and carry all of them off to its nest high in the Himalaya Mountains!

For kids this is a playful way to look at how some of childhood’s worst episodes, looked at from the perspective of wild hyperbole, aren’t really so bad.  It’s a valuable life lesson in coping.

But right now each of us is living in his or her personal dilemma of COVID-19.  And depending on which of the virus’s consequences has befallen us, it can be hard to imagine HOW it could possibly be worse.

As of today’s writing (Thursday, May 7, 2020) more than 30 million people have filed for unemployment benefits since the pandemic began.  That’s a whole lot of people who are wondering how it “could be worse.”

A lot of small businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water, what with mandatory closings for a protracted period of time.  In the face of losing the business, it’s devastating to consider what “could be worse.”

Many people are looking at foreclosures on their homes, or repossession of their cars.  Others are piling up debt in loans or on credit cards while they wait for unemployment benefits to kick in, or for their jobs to be reinstated.  What “could be worse?”

Aside from the crippling financial anxieties people are feeling, there are the fears some of us have of just catching the virus.  We know from news stories that this virus could be nothing at all, or it could mean long, lingering time on a ventilator followed by death alone in an ICU.  Not a bright prospect, the latter.  What “could be worse?”

None of what Americans (or anyone in the world, for that matter) are feeling can be coaxed away by the whimsical watercolor paintings in a child’s book of a pterodactyl-sized bird soaring away with us in its talons to a massive nest high in some mountains we’ve never heard of.

For too many of us, right now nothing “could be worse.”

And that condition of anxiety and fear is bringing out the worst in some of us.

It’s understandable.

The losses so far, financial and physical, have created fears for what worse will follow.  And those of us who haven’t experienced these losses have fears that we soon will.

Unfortunately, fear breeds inexcusable acts.

So when a man in Dollar Tree store who is asked to wear a face covering wipes his running nose on the sleeve of an employee, we can understand his anger stemming from his frustration stemming from his fears.  But we can’t really excuse such a disgusting reaction.

And when three men, in response to one of their wives being denied entrance to a Dollar Store in Flint because she won’t put on a face mask, gun down and kill the employee who asked her to comply with a state order, we can understand it where this response came from (undeniably inappropriate though it is), but we sure can’t excuse it.

We can’t excuse these behaviors because, underneath the fears, we are rational adults.  With patience and time we can mull over these impulse acts and decide not to commit them.

These impulse acts can, actually, be worse than our fears, because they pile on more misery and harm to an already bad situation.

I mention this because I see these protests at state capitals as impulsive acts born out of fear that only serve to make matters worse.

I get that people want and need to get back to work. Something like 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and that’s a horrible situation in and of itself.

And I get that, depending on which state you live in, there are prohibitions on employment that just don’t make any sense because of their inconsistency or hypocrisy.

And I get that for some of us it isn’t the end of the world to stay away from situations we think will put us at risk of catching the virus.

The question becomes how do we, as reasonable adults, take into account others’ feelings and express our sympathy and compassion?  How do we acknowledge that each other’s plights, at this time, couldn’t be worse, and cut them a little slack?  How do we set aside our very real fears and anxieties and think about the other guy before we act out?

As usual, I can’t speak for others.

I’m a retired senior citizen.  I like my solitary time at home where my health isn’t at risk.  I can shop during “seniors only” hours at the grocery store.  I don’t need to go to public gatherings.  My biggest sacrifices at this time, in order of personal pain, are not having seen my grandsons in seven weeks (though they live only four miles away), and not being able to volunteer at the library.  Viewed in the greater scheme of things there are so many things that could be worse.

So I have time to ponder how awful it must be to be stuck at home when a person derives more than just that very important paycheck from his or her job.  The workplace is a social place where friends are engaged in work that gives them value and is a shared experience.  Loss of pay is bad enough.  Add to that the loss of the people with whom you laugh and cry and kick around your frustrations.  Not much could be worse.

I have time to consider how it must feel to see a business you’ve nurtured for many years slip away due to conditions out of your control.  Great customer service, best business practices, and long, long hours can’t make up for a virus that makes people stay away.

When I think of all these things that are so much worse than my fear of being exposed to COVID-19, my perspective becomes much clearer.

My only word to those who are tempted to act in ways that serve to threaten a spike in the number of cases of coronavirus is this:

For health professionals who cope willingly with the daily strife of other people’s calamities, the thing that can be and is worse than a “normal” crisis like a school bus accident or a mass shooting is this COVID-19 pandemic.

Maybe if we take their situations into consideration we’ll be saner responders to our own fears and make less selfish decisions.

Maybe, just maybe, the plight of first responders and medical workers could be worse than our own situations.

And considering that fact alone could serve to govern our actions despite our fears.