How to handle news, good and bad
This week’s question comes to us from Andrew Norcross:
How do you handle a situation knowing that good news for you is inevitably bad news for someone else?
First off, take the time to celebrate the fact that you got some good news. We don’t do that enough, and good news is in short supply. It’s also subjective and relative as fuck.
Secondly, I think one of the most important things I learned as a kid is that after the game, everyone lines up, shakes hands, and says “Good game!” Whether you win or lose, you congratulate the other team for their effort. After all, winning today is no guarantee of winning tomorrow. So we treat the losing team with grace and kindness, in the hope that they’ll return it in kind when the shoe is on the other foot.
The problem is that over the course of a season, you end up visiting a lot of other team’s fields. And you begin to notice that some of the other teams have new uniforms, really nice fields, modern training facilities, weight rooms, and even spas! And you realize that you’re ending up on the losing side of a lot of those games, even though they’re a public school just like you are.
And sometimes, when another team comes to play at your field, their bus is smoking as it pulls in, their uniforms might not be as shiny as yours, you notice some of the kids sharing gloves, and you realize that you’re ending up on the winning side of a lot of those games, even though they’re a public school just like you are.
You start wondering if maybe good news and bad news is unevenly distributed.
The next thing you know you’re at the library after school looking up socialism in the card stack (it’s 335), because you’re wondering about the underlying systems that lead some people to get more good news than bad news. And because this is America, you also look up “racism in America” (it’s 305) and then you discover the Dewey Decimal System itself is racist, because of course it is.
So the next time you’re visiting one of the well-to-do schools maybe you grab a few extra bats and a bag of balls from their equipment room as you’re packing up. And maybe you leave those in the visiting dugout when one of the less-well-to-do school shows up on your field next time. To help with the redistribution a little bit.
The problem with my whole metaphor is that I’m using a construct where there has to be a winner, and there has to be a winner. (Yes, I know ties exist. Shut up.) One group will get good news, and the other group gets bad news. And we carry this mentality with us throughout our lives. Sometimes because situations are like that.
For everyone who gets a job, or a promotion, there will be a lot of people who don’t get the job or the promotion. For everyone who gets the lead role in the play, lots of people will be turned away. One person gets good news. Many people get bad news. So you line up, you shake hands, you say “Good game.” But eventually you start noticing that all the people getting the good news look a little bit alike. And all the people getting the bad news look a little bit alike. And you start thinking that it’s maybe not a good game, but a rigged game.
And we expand the winner/loser construct into places where it frankly doesn’t need to exist. We don’t feed who’s hungry because we’re afraid they’d be taking that food from us. (They’re not.) We don’t heal who’s sick because we’re afraid they’re taking a hospital bed we might need. (It’ll be there if you need it.) We don’t house who needs housing because we won’t be able to charge them for that housing. (Who cares?) We murder children because we’re afraid that some day they’ll grow up to murder us.
We withhold good news, even when it’s within our capability to give, because we believe that good news requires an equal, opposite reaction. Good news for others must mean bad news for us.
But what if it didn’t? Because it really doesn’t.
What if we decided we were done playing this rigged game, gathered around the mound, and just shared our orange slices? Which, honestly, was always my favorite part of the game.
❓ Got a question? Ask it. Will I answer it? Maybe. I’ll try.
📙 Happy to announce that Erika’s Just Enough Research is back and now published by Mule Books, which means when you buy it she will actually see money from it. (The less I say about that the better.)
🎤 I’ve got a few pots left in my Presenting w/Confidence workshop next week.
🍉 Please donate to the Palestinian Children’ Relief Fund. There seems to be no end to this horror.