We talk ourselves into bad judgement

The one thing that has been on every Malaysian's mind this weekend was the talk about an imminent lockdown. Because the Health Ministry went public and announced that they recommended lockdowns in areas with high numbers of new cases. So yesterday, the government finally announced that there will be a lockdown in 6 districts in Selangor. Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, which are surrounded by the 6 districts are still not under lockdown, which seems kind of silly. We know that people travel freely between all these places, so it's not like Kuala Lumpur has fewer cases. I guess the government is either worried about impacting the economy or losing votes. Anyhow, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I think this is a very lenient lockdown that isn't going to do a whole lot to bring the number of cases back under control. But on the other hand, on a selfish side, I do feel a bit relieved because I live in Kuala Lumpur, and the two comedy clubs are in Kuala Lumpur and the climbing gym we go to is in Kuala Lumpur. Maybe it's not even selfishness but just short-sightedness or wishful thinking.

I think selfishness and wishful thinking is not the same thing but kind of closely related. A lot of times, our motivation is selfish but the result is we bend the rules for ourselves and to justify this, we convince ourselves that it is okay to bend the rules "just this once". In this case, of course it would make more sense to lock down Kuala Lumpur as well. But in my brain, I'm thinking, "We're just getting strong again with the climbing and if we have to go through another 3-month lockdown, we'll have to start all over again with our training and that would suck." And the same goes for the comedy clubs too. Of course I would wish that they can stay open. I have a show coming up on May 15th and I'm really looking forward to it and I'm glad we don't have to cancel that. And I'm glad we can still have open mics to practice our jokes and not get too rusty. But at the same time, of course, I don't want the number of Covid cases to rise. So I start telling myself, "It's okay. We can still do comedy, we can still go climbing, it doesn't mean the number of cases will rise. Maybe the number of cases will drop." But deep down inside, I know this is wishful thinking. I know that if everyone thought like that, the result will be disastrous. But the thing is... we all do think like that all the time.

Last week, there was a report of an uncle who drove through a red light and into another car, killing a lady and severely injuring her teenage daughter. And of course we can say that guy's crazy or incredibly stupid. But I have seen people drive like that before. I have been at a 4 way intersection when my lights are green and a car from the perpendicular side speeds through the intersection, through a red light, without slowing down and there's absolutely no way they could have known if another car was doing the same from another side. And I'm just always curious what goes through people's minds when they do this. I think when we're in a hurry, there's a tendency for this selfish/wishful kind of thinking to kick in. We start to think "I'm in a hurry. I better make it. It'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen." And of course, nothing happens until it does.

My friend nosenudge says the phrasing is important. It sounds very different if the person thinks "I'm in a hurry so I don't mind killing someone for it." If they thought of it that way, they wouldn't go through with it. But I don't think we think like that. I think once the selfishness and wishful thinking kicks in, we just find the words to talk ourselves into doing it. We are very good at talking ourselves into bad judgement.

So anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I have some mixed feelings about this whole lenient MCO announcement, and I think it is because of my human tendency to be selfish and wishful. If I were able to be completely rational and logical, I can just say it is good or bad. Most probably, bad.

Update: A few days after I wrote this, the whole country went into lockdown.




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