“My life is over.”
When doctors told me the reality of my injury–spinal cord damage and paralysis–I absolutely knew my life was over. I couldn’t walk, run, ride a bike, or do any of the things thirty-six-year-old men were supposed to do.
I’d lost everything, and my life was over.
It’s easy to understand my immediate reaction to a horrific accident. This incident illustrates our tendency to think in false dichotomies.
The simple fact is that I didn’t go from having everything to having nothing. I didn’t have “everything” before the accident, and I didn’t have “nothing” afterward. My friend Leonard helped me in a pivotal point in my recovery with this simple diagram.
He drew a circle and wrote “10,000” inside it. “Suppose this represents the 10,000 things you could do before your injury.”
Then he drew the second circle. He paused for a moment. “You just lost 2000 things, and that stinks. You’ll likely never walk again. You won’t run, or ride a bike, or dunk a basketball or play the violin again.” (I couldn’t do those last two anyway–Leonard thought he was funny.)
“Do the math. You’re acting like you lost everything, but it’s not that simple.”
Leonard was right. It’s not that simple. And it would be easy to jump to the other side. “Get on with your life. Let go of the 2000. Focus on the 8000.”
Honestly, being in a wheelchair stinks even after 27 years. Before you tell me to simply “let go” of those things I lost as though they don’t matter, perhaps you should roll a few miles in my shoes.
Life Is Rarely Black And White
You can’t live a useful life in a wheelchair, or life in a wheelchair is 100% peachy-keen, sunshine and roses.
More likely, it’s somewhere between. More likely you can learn to ride a different kind of bike and contribute something valuable. More likely it won’t be all sunshine, but God will bring friends onto your path who will surround you and keep you going. More likely some days will be shells and most days will be peanuts.
We’re attracted to false dichotomies.
Black Lives Matter or all lives matter. More likely, both perspectives are valid. We would all be better served if we ratchet down the rhetoric, care about understanding before being understood, and give up the need to win.
You’re either with us, or you’re against us. More likely, I’m in one of many other possible positions.
Sociologists point out an interesting, and often frustrating, aspect of this phenomenon. For those who engage in dichotomous thinking, any attempt to bridge the gap will be viewed as loyalty to “the other side.”
Makes discussion tough, because even well-intended efforts can quickly disintegrate into you-and-us arguments.
Thing is, in most circumstances there isn’t any you. There’s only us.