It is said that the best time to tell someone bad news is yesterday. And, unless the world is hiding their own personal time machines that allow them to travel back to yesterday, everyone is avoiding telling someone bad news.
My question, which I send out to the void, is why do we wait to tell people bad news? It can’t be to spare anyone from the immense pain they are sure to face when we tell them… it has to be to save ourselves from our own pain. In fact, I know it is because I am very guilty of being concerned with myself in these situations.
It is very easy to see that people are selfish creatures. We do what we can for ourselves. Darwin describes it in his theory of survival of the fittest. The strongest, those who do the most for themselves, survive. The Bible talks about how we as people have wicked and selfish hearts. Even as children we are not only exposed to the selfishness of those people around us, but also we watch villains who are selfish in our Disney movies.
The classic phrase we all use as two year olds is “mine.” Mine, (“…and they call it a mine, a mine!) that word not only makes the other two year old on the playground mad when you wont give him the truck, but it also lets the world know that even at a young age we are selfish.
We try to be sympathetic, compassionate, and altruistic but many times we fail. We have our moments of true kindness, but many times our motives aren’t concerned about other people.
Don’t get me wrong though, I am not calling society heartless jerks, I am pointing out that we all fail. We try to help others and try to spare their feelings when it comes to bad news but most of the time they get hurt and so do we.
Avoid the news? Sure, that is smart let it resonate in the pit of your stomach, let your conscience eat it up, that will help. No avoiding telling someone doesn’t help anyone.
You may not believe it, but I don’t want to sound depressing. I don’t want to be one of those girls my drama describes who writes poetry about their “organs being filled with tar” I am just expressing the true disgust I have with this very unflattering characteristic I hold.
You can lie about bad news, but try living with that… try letting that person who you need to tell the bad news live without it. Try living a lie. It isn’t easy.
Until the wondrous time machine appears in society, we all have to face the best solution, which is our greatest fear… releasing the news. Sure, yesterday all of my troubles seemed so far away, but today, if I tell the news I can stop having a pit in my stomach. The Sounds may not want to hurt you, but wounds can heal with time, and time is a constant when nothing else is.
Above our selfish ways, above the pain we may feel when telling this bad news… time can be there to aid these situations.
If you made it through this laborious and depressing post, then perhaps you and I can realize that we need to just tell our bad news, stop wishing for yesterday, and realize today is the best day to try and make it better.
Well, it is quite obvious that telling something immediately is the best action to take. However, as you've explained it is not commonly observed for several reasons,
ReplyDelete1) We do not wish to hurt others
-- Now, while this may seem kind, it is extremely selfish. Because hurting others hurts us, and we don't want to hurt. Unless, of course, you are completely indifferent, then it may not specifically matter.
2)Bad news means consequences.
-- The individual person resents being restrained, and this is what consequences do. They restrain a person, but so does withholding of the bad news. The reasoning behind holding back the news though, is that the consequences are often much 'worse' than living with a secret in most cases.
3) Time is a relative term.
-- Yes, it is commonly acknowledge that with time, anything will occur. However, since society is becoming based much more around immediacy of events, time is not an option. Impatience becomes highly common amongst the common populace and this means that 'waiting' is unbearable for most.
4) Social structure of society.
-- What you describe is most common, or at least observed to be most common, amongst consumer based societies. In this case, America and Europe are prime examples of this. From our childhood we are brought up within a society that holds private property very dear to the heart, this raises the selfish generations. Those that live in poverty are generally more open with each other, of course this is a generalization. Those that live rich lives are generally more closed/reserved with others.
So, now that there a few reason down, it is quite obvious as we see here, that through our social structure and personal make-up we have designed a society that cannot 'break the news'.