Don't Attend The Party!

Did you hear about the man who shouted the same three words every day from his street-corner news stand?  “Ain’t It Awful!” he would say to each passerby while extending a newspaper. People bought a paper because they couldn’t resist learning about the most recent terrible event that had occurred. 

The same thing happened in our Omaha World Herald newspaper a few weeks ago. On March 25, 2020 our local paper ran this headline: 

“Nebraska has far to go in virus fight, faces huge hospital bed shortfall.”

The article went on to say, “If half or more of Nebraskans contract COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and if 5% to 10% of the sick require hospitalization – as some health organizations have projected – perhaps 100,000 hospital beds will be needed in Nebraska, a state with about 7,000 such beds.”

Commercial. . .

Please Don’t Attend Doomsday,

“Ain’t It Awful”

Parties.

Here’s Why. . . back to the article. The Doomsday Projections were mathematically absurd. With Nebraska having a population of 1,900,000, to require 100,000 beds one would have to assume 50% of the population were simultaneously infected with COVID-19, of that 950,000, 10.5% needed to be hospitalized, and all on the exact same days. (If you’re not a math person, you might want to read that again).

The facts. Recently, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates the need for hospital beds in Nebraska will peak later this month at 1,400. (That is a far cry from 100,000)

People are attracted to, love to talk about, believe in and dwell on the “awful”. . . even if it is inaccurate or improbable. 

It’s a bad party to attend. . .

Tragedy and dire predictions always make the front page, and if we become preoccupied with bad news, inaccurate details, undesirable circumstances and unfortunate life events, we will succumb to a lifestyle of “awfulizing” – a pervasive pessimism that clouds every situation with gloom. 

Charles Swindoll called this “verbal pollution,” passed around by grumblers, pessimists, complainers, and criticizers (and people trying to sell newspapers). “This poison of pessimism,” Swindoll writes, “creates an atmosphere of wholesale negativism where nothing but the bad side of everything is emphasized.”

Ironically, the doomsayers defend their position by declaring themselves ‘realists’ and reject anyone who might inject a spirit of hope or optimism into the situation.

Please don’t allow the dramatic, slanted, exaggerated news that you have no control of to determine your fate. Take responsibility for the information you digest, how you respond to today’s events and approach your tomorrows.

In the absence of this important proactive approach, people are held prisoner to every situation, uncertainty, experience, or crisis they encounter. (I hope that doesn’t sound familiar). 

Decide now not to let anyone or anything decide what your day will be like. Tell yourself this minute, “I will take 100% responsibility for the quality of my day no matter who or what tries to influence me to become an “awfulizer” or even worse a “catastrophizer.”

“I believe that today will be better than yesterday!”

Our journey through the Coronavirus pandemic will be much less dramatic or traumatic if we don’t attend the “Ain’t It Awful” Party!

Glenn