“We need to talk.”

If you ever heard or seen that message, you might have estimated that there are bad consequences to follow that talk. Perhaps you’re getting fired, breaking up, a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal disease and has days to live, someone died, you have been diagnosed with a terminal disease and have hours to live, you’re partner is pregnant, you aren’t getting a bonus, you’re losing the house, BTS finally retired, a war broke out, someone bombed someone else, the list goes on.

See how quickly yours and my thoughts can go from 0 to 1,000,000,000?

And, see how quickly you and I can decide that things really are 1,000,000,000?

Suppose you have the talk and you learn that something bad has happened — let’s call it “level 50 bad”. That you means you twenty million times overestimated the badness! Why and to what end? Probability need to calibrate our estimations of bad down a bit.

I know I’m picking on you. You’re not alone though. I do this too. We all overestimate bad.

I am not saying that things can’t be bad, or that things might not be really bad. I am saying, you and I are likely overestimating and deciding that it’s worse than it is. I see that as arrogant.

Why should we be so confident to believe our overestimations? What do we know that the people living the slog don’t know? And since we believe our estimations of bad, why are the people living it underrating their experience? Think about it. It’s horribly arrogant on our part. I’m routinely told by my team that I overestimate how bad BTS is on our culture, and they’re right, I should probably join them to see how bad it really is for them (Hat tip to Lizzo, a faithful reader).

And I believe you and I need to check ourselves. We need to remember that we overestimate and we need to calibrate down. I am advocating for being closer to what’s actually happening than further away from it. It’s easier to move through life when you see it as it is than how we intend it to be.

Easier said than done.

Last modified on 2026-03-07