Possibility and Despair

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Possibility … is to human existence what vowels are to speech. To live in pure possibility is like an infants utterance of vowel sounds, which fail to express something that is definite and clear. Vowels alone do not make for articulate speech, although without them nothing can be said at all. Similarly, “if a human existence is brought to the point where it lacks possibility, then it is in despair and is in deeper every moment it lacks possibility.” One cannot breathe without oxygen, but it is also impossible to breathe pure oxygen. Possibility is a kind of spiritual oxygen that a person cannot live without, but one cannot live on pure possibility either.

C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction

The joy of third place

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Is third place better than coming in second? Third seems to be a better result if you are in the Olympics. Psychologists at Cornell University say their research shows bronze-medal winners are generally happier than silver medalists. Why? When you come in second place, you focus on what you might have done differently to win. When you come in third you are happy just to get a medal.

The phenomenon of "what if" reasoning (knows as Counterfactual thinking) leads us to imagine how things could have been different rather than on what actually has happened. The bronze winners generally think “what if” I hadn’t won anything and they realize how fortunate they are to be on the podium. But for the silver medalist, “what if” means pondering the little things that might have turned silver into gold. 

It seems counterfactual thinking plays out, not just in games, but in everyday life. If a student misses making a grade of "A" by one point, having scored a "B" is no longer so satisfying. 

"Would I be happier today if only I had married someone else?" “What if I had attended a different school or majored in another field?” “Suppose I had selected a different profession?” 

Miss a flight by five minutes and you are frustrated. But if there’s no way you could make the flight you don't waste time on it. It's like the football team that loses in the final seconds of a game. If the team had gotten blown out, the players could more easily put it behind them and move on. But when victory was so very close, they can always think of little things they might have done differently to affect the outcome.    

Do you puzzle over what you might have done until you what-if yourself into dissatisfaction? Do you get stuck thinking about what almost happened? Do you feel like you are the silver medalist in life?  

It's worth noting that first place has its pitfalls as well. Research indicates that the first runner in a long-distance race puts in three times more effort to maintain that position than the runner-up. The researchers recommend when you are in the lead you should focus on the struggle with oneself rather than the pace of the other runners. 

Stephen Goforth