Fight or Flight

Some people learn from mistakes, some don’t and repeat the errors over and over.

And some don’t survive mistakes long enough to learn.

Take the old story about “Boiling A Frog.”

We are told that if a frog is in a pan of cool water and the temperature is raised very slowly, the frog adjusts and bears the warmer water. Supposedly (the story goes), he will just keep tolerating hotter and hotter water until he boils to death.

Of course, if you know your frogs (and you DO know frogs, don’t you?), they will eventually jump out. After all, even a frog can only put up with so much.

The lesson is figuring out the point when the frog decides to jump out.

The philosophers will ask “What killed the frog?” Was it the boiling water or the frog’s decision

that the situation wasn’t quite bad enough yet.

You may have heard a similar story — an urban myth about an older couple in a hot tub who were enjoying relaxing and drinking wine. When the time came to get out of the tub, the hot water and alcohol had pretty much sapped their strength and they couldn’t climb out. The police found them cooked — not boiled but probably nice and tender.

We all have a threshold where we adjust to situations. How much would you put up with from an abusive or unfaithful spouse, or a bad job, or a neighborhood where crime is increasing every year?

How confrontational are you? How critical are you of change?

Our ancestors, Fred and Wilma Flintstone, were survivors because of the “Fight or Flight” reflex. This is an involuntary physiological change triggered by some event such as a sabre-tooth tiger pouncing on you from the tall grass. Your heartbeat and respiration increase, your adrenal glands start pumping go-go juice into your veins. And you either swing the club at the tiger or drop it and get out of Bedrock!

We don’t have too many sabre-tooth tigers around today (although some of the dogs I see people walking on city sidewalks are nearly as scary). Yet we haven’t lost this evolutionary alarm that saves us when a fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night or your in-laws call and say they are coming for a visit — and staying.

You may be a control freak and think you don’t have to worry about the unexpected. Or you may live from moment-to-moment and suffer anxiety and shock constantly. Understanding Fight or Flight can go a long way to making your life easier.

Philosophers and the more informed public speakers and journalists use the term in various situations — you know, as a metaphor.

Al Gore uses this story when talking or writing about so-called global warming (more accurately titled, “climate change”). People are cautioned to react to warming of the seas and diminishing polar ice caps before it is too late.

“Jump frog, or die!”

Some people are unaware of changing conditions, others are unwilling to recognize them or to consider them harmful.

Business and government are the two biggest offenders in the latter case. We wonder why bad things keep happening and we don’t learn lessons (like economic cycles or natural disasters such as drought). Inertia is easy, change is difficult.

Philosophic examples include the sand pile where one grain of sand is removed every minute. How does one determine the amount of sand that remains is no longer a “heap?”

And the Arabian proverb “If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.” lets us imagine a camel sticking its nose through the flap of the tent. Although that is a small intrusion, the flap of the tent is now open and the camel is able to continue advancing until someone inside thinks it is way past time to chase it out.

Personally, my wife and I have a track record of going new places and doing new things. Then, if it looks like they aren’t going to work out, we move on. We have no children, no pets, don’t own a house and basically make ourselves as nimble and flexible as possible.

Many other people couldn’t live like that.

So we all must decide when it is beneficial to jump or adjust to the conditions.