In the Washington Post Article, “Your reaction to this confusing headline reveals more about you than you know” by Ana Swanson, the line that called me from the page was, “Getting hitched might seem like an odd reaction to a disaster. But in an uncertain time, these couples found something stable in each other. As psychological studies show, uncertainty triggers a deep craving in all of us for stability, and that can motivate people to do strange things.” This called me from the page because it reminded me of a memory I had forgotten. When I was in the eleventh grade on a normal Tuesday at school, I was watching the clock and counting down the last five minutes before the bell rang to go home. That day I didn’t hear the bell because I was being ushered out of the three story school building along with thousands of other scared students because we were under lock down. We had no idea if it was a drill or an actual emergency until we saw the looks of panic on our teachers faces and knew it was not a drill and our lives were at risk. We stood in the stadium bleachers for three hours while waves of panic and unsure thoughts about the future came over us. We ended up being fine and it was just a precaution because there had been a devastating shooting at a community college down the road. I will never forget the thoughts that I kept inside about the things I had wished I had done when I thought my life was in danger or the things that my classmates and I discussed, things that they had wished they had done, while we waited, unsure when we were going to be let out of those stands. “Several studies suggest that natural disasters, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the Japanese tsunami in 2011, led to a spike in marriages or divorces — both of which are a form of certainty, Holmes says” This reaction to consider the things that have been left undone and then wanting to do something crazy after a stressful, life threatening situation, according to this article are totally normal. I was amazed that these people actually went through with these crazy thoughts until I remembered the things I had thought of when my life was threatened and realized that it wasn’t so crazy after all. In this article I also realized that I am someone who is inclined to search for closure and that that could be one of the reasons why in stressful situations I think about the end of my life and regrets I have. Although I did not always agree with the political views of the “closure minded people,” I do agree that I am the “type of person who likes to make plans and avoid surprises.” I found it fascinated that the conclusions the mind jumps to could be the wrong ones and that they could survey our surroundings and still make a faulty conclusion. I also think of myself as a very creative person and was fascinated to learn that “wading through confusion is part of the creative process” because wading through confusing to me feels stressful and the opposite of creative. This article fascinated me but made me wonder why our brains, when faced with stressful situations, would trick us and amplify our stress filling our heads with regrets and the worst possible outcomes, instead of calming us when we needed it?
Works Cited:
Swanson, Ana. “Your Reaction to This Confusing Headline Reveals More about You than You Know.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.