I’m not a sociologist, and probably there is someone who knows what they’re talking about who has done actual research and maybe written an actual paper I just haven’t seen. But I have this theory that humans need some level of discomfort.
In part, I think the brain gets stronger when challenged. It needs practical challenges, not just artificial challenges. And in part, I think that suffering is relative. Those people who freak out about getting the wrong color iPhone? It’s literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, and they have no coping skills.
All that to say… We’re definitely fucking ourselves up by trying to make things TOO safe and comfortable.
Personally, I think everyone should go through at least one crisis when they are adolescents so they know how to handle things, or at least what traits they need to get under control. If you never experience something going wrong, when you can still bounce back, you will never survive “rolling snake eyes” and getting hit by a bad event.
Then again, some training on coping skills and then created scenarios where people must then use said coping skills (e.g. get left in the wild for 2 days with some food, a tent and the ability to chicken out on the condition they retake the course) would probably work as well.
This is a thing in some scouting programs, and I hear it’s a pretty common thing in the Netherlands to drop teens in the woods and let them figure their way back.
I’m not a sociologist, and probably there is someone who knows what they’re talking about who has done actual research and maybe written an actual paper I just haven’t seen. But I have this theory that humans need some level of discomfort.
In part, I think the brain gets stronger when challenged. It needs practical challenges, not just artificial challenges. And in part, I think that suffering is relative. Those people who freak out about getting the wrong color iPhone? It’s literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, and they have no coping skills.
All that to say… We’re definitely fucking ourselves up by trying to make things TOO safe and comfortable.
Personally, I think everyone should go through at least one crisis when they are adolescents so they know how to handle things, or at least what traits they need to get under control. If you never experience something going wrong, when you can still bounce back, you will never survive “rolling snake eyes” and getting hit by a bad event.
Then again, some training on coping skills and then created scenarios where people must then use said coping skills (e.g. get left in the wild for 2 days with some food, a tent and the ability to chicken out on the condition they retake the course) would probably work as well.
This is a thing in some scouting programs, and I hear it’s a pretty common thing in the Netherlands to drop teens in the woods and let them figure their way back.