Stop Preparing For The Last Disaster

After a particularly stressful event, most people prepare for a repeat of the same challenge they just faced. From the micro level to the macro level, we succumb to the availability bias and get ready to fight a war we’ve already fought.

We learn that one lesson, but we don’t expand that knowledge to other areas. Because we focus on the specific details, we don’t extrapolate what we learn to identifying what we can better do to prepare for adversity in general.

When a certain disaster or calamity happens, we work towards ensuring that the same calamity can be dealt with in the better way, the next time it happens. The pain or loss that we suffer motivates us to do so.

We forget in our preparation and resource allocation to the ‘last’ disaster, that we have neglected many other things that are more likely to happen.