The Easy Button

As folks in the Boston area begin to put the pieces back together, I notice a nearly universal phenomenon following tragedies: the search for an “easy button.”

We want THE answer, happy endings, a fast fix. And mostly, they don’t exist.

In real life, there’s rarely an easy button.

When faced with significant loss, people need to grieve. It doesn’t matter how many inspirational stories we tell them, the grief process is a given. Everyone moves through it in their own way, at their own speed, but everyone has to grieve if they truly want to heal and move forward.

Victims of violence and oppression don’t need a quick fix. Yes, they need immediate relief, protection, or rescue from immediate danger, but that’s only the beginning. Once the storm subsides, the real work begins. That’s when they need people willing to listen, travel along on their painful path, and assure them they’re not alone.

Often it’s a long process that happens after CNN moves on to the next sensational story. It’s not the glamorous, inspirational tale we’ll see later in the made-for-TV movie. It’s one step forward, two steps back. It’s tears and sleepless nights wondering whether you’ll ever stop hurting or whether it’s worth crawling out of bed to face another day.

You and I can’t prevent horrible storms and accidents. We can’t eradicate the human evil that intentionally harms or kills innocent victims and enslaves human beings for the profit and pleasure of others.

We can resolve to ease the suffering where we encounter it. I’ll continue to argue that if we help even one person, we change the world.

That means we drop our need to provide a quick fix for complex problems. We commit to be the one who sticks around for the difficult, painful, after-the-storm recovery process.

We resist the urge to push the easy button.

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