Its a Set Up! How your Choice of Situation is Far More Important than Any Other Decision

When you can't predict the future, the importance of choosing situations rather than fretting individual actions is crucial.

In First is the Worst, I talked about how human nature causes one's perspective and expectations to change when power is mixed in. In my view, there is something deep about human nature that leads to this phenomenon, and it applies to any influence we are exposed to, including when we are empowered.

So what do I mean when I say choosing situations should be the focus of concern rather than individual choices?

Well, to begin, when I say “situations,” I am referring to the environments, including location, people, and other forms of information, one is exposed to at a given time. A situation might be getting on an airplane, or going out to a bar to party. It could be hanging out with Joe and Jane, or dating Lisa. It could be watching CNN or spending most of your time on Facebook.

Regardless of the specific situation, my argument is that situations themselves set you up for certain outcomes. In terms of better or worse outcomes for your life, I am thinking of risky situations or beneficial situations. More importantly, how can I get a handle on setting myself up for meaningful outcomes according to my own wishes, rather than feeling trapped and “set up” by risky situations that end up in unfortunate outcomes.

Situations, More than Individual Choices, Drive Probable Outcomes

Every child has probably heard something along the lines of: “Don't go to such and such part of town, or “Don't go alone to such and such place at night.” The common warning from parents is an example of how avoiding risky situations can be much more effective than worrying about how to deal with a situation once bad stuff starts to happen.

The idea is if you avoid a high risk situation such as walking home alone in the dark at night, you are less likely to be bothered by those wishing to do harm.

This sort of situational management is central to my thoughts in this article. The idea is you set yourself up for failure if you put yourself in a high risk situation in the first place. Avoid the high risk situation and you do not have to worry about coping with all the specific ways shit could hit the fan.

Take drinking for example. Alcohol is not dangerous because I know for sure this time I drink something bad will happen, but rather because of the changes in behaviors it causes can set you up to get into bad situations. There can be countless times you drink and nothing happens. However, the behavior has to be seen as rolling the dice each time. You can set your life up around dealing with the dice roll, or you can just avoid rolling the dice altogether and not worry about it.

Before I continue, I thought I'd mention that I am not advocating for an overcautious state where you stay locked in your house in order to avoid risk. Everything, technically, is risky. I'm not advocating the avoidance of everything.

Rather, since life is short and we can only make so many choices, why not focus on minimizing outsized risks, while learning how to maximize rewards? Instead of avoiding all risky situations, be more thoughtful and strategic about what you are exposing yourself to.

Cut out those behaviors or activities you think have a large potential to affect your life negatively, and you free yourself up for more of the activities that contribute positively to your life. These choices may change and evolve over life too and the things you avoid at one point at time could be things you participate at others when the timing is better.

Again, its all about how you are managing things to your benefit to the best of your ability at the time.

So far, I've talked about how managing situations can set you up for avoiding unnecessary risks. But what forms can “situations” take. I've talked about the obvious physical actions like whether you drink or whether you go to a dangerous part of town or hang out with bad influences, but what about informational exposures? It seems clear to me that what we see, hear, and read can also be a major component of the probable outcomes in our thoughts and opinions, which drive our actions.

The phenomenon of what we expose ourselves to affecting our thoughts and ideas ties into why some people convince themselves the world is going to end tomorrow, that is the hyper-negative and pessimistic people who can't see a silver lining. Its hard not to feel that way if you watch 24/7 news all the time. News, especially bad news, draws eyeballs and so media outlet cater their coverage to meet our curiosity for negative information by showing us a lot of bad news.

Problems continually prop up. Concerned talking heads debate about how the choices being made are hypothetically inferior to their alternatives. The news needs to create news just as much as it needs to report on it.

We see this in how presidential candidates are prodded to sling mud at each other by journalists or why Donald Trump cannot seem to stay out of the news by being a continually burning dumpster fire, just hot enough to keep the cameras on him.

Mass shootings fall under this category too. Media outlets sensationalize and over report these shootings, a trend which many psychologists believe encourages more shootings to occur.

The internet is another good example of how your initial attention can shape what information you are exposed and how you shape your perspective and opinions on the world. The internet is arguably a place where you can find people to back up any perspective or opinion.

You think 9/11 might have been a conspiracy? Well, as long as you have that initial belief, there are countless websites ready to supply your attention with “facts” and opinions to reinforce your initial assumption.

How to weigh the quality of information should be taught in schools because the internet will likely reinforce whatever assumptions you have to begin with. This means the burden of censorship lies squarely on your shoulders. One should be very careful about what they are paying attention to online. If you are not diligent, your imagination can quickly be carried away to dark and misleading places just like when you watch the news too often or are always looking for ways the world will fail.

This is a sad way that life works because often an unbalanced negative view of the world signals serious mental health issues like depression. I know this was the case for me. When I was depressed, I thought the world was going to sh*t and everything around me sucked. What is sad is that in this state can reinforce itself as one seeks out more things that make you even more sad and apathetic.

How You Create Your Own Wants and Needs

Avoiding risky situations in our thoughts can also relate to how our attention can create and shape our wants and desires. I proved this idea to myself when I experimented with dating websites. In using the site, potential matches, real women, are presented to you as lines of images like Amazon shopping products. You click on a profile and, if you haven't decided your interest superficially from their still photo, you read a little of their profile resume and decide if you want to make contact.

It became very clear to me that anxieties surrounding romantic relationships and dating were heightened while using the dating website. Another way to put this is: I worried more about my relationship status while using these sites, than not.

Now, you may think it odd that simply using a dating website would itself encourage you to keep using the website and to remain insecure in your dating life. But, this was my experience. My initial actions to participate on the sites led to me worrying more about dating...most importantly, when it was unnecessary to do so.

Since deleting my account, I have thought significantly less about dating, and I am much more naturally secure in my relationship status- if only because I'm not prompted to think about it.

Out of sight, out of mind is real, in my opinion, and you can use harness it to improve your life!

This discussion reminds me of how advertising works. Advertising is very much about into sight, into mind. When you are scrolling your favorite websites online, you will see ads for products sellers think you might want. Sometimes this can be helpful by connecting you to items you actual could use. Most of the time, however, they are there to prompt you to think about them. If you think about those items, you are more likely to buy them, plain and simple.

Here again, we see how simple exposure to something like an advertisement is effective for changing your behaviors. Its no wonder we plow money into beauty products, status symbols, and other products when we are constantly being exposed to the idea that what we already have is not enough in advertising.

A Call for Intentionality and Putting the Odds in your Favor

Ok, so we can see a vague outline of what could be done to improve one's life. Pursue the beneficial situations, or at the least, eliminate the most obviously risky ones. No one is omniscient and we cannot totally predict what will happen by exposing ourselves to X, Y, or Z influence or event. However, we can gain some benefit from harnessing probability. Rather than rolling the die on risky or detrimental behaviors, we can focus on playing for the rewarding ones.

You may just end up feeling a little happier, a little more in control of your life, a little more relaxed. You may drink a little less, eat a little less fatty foods. You may decide not to talk to that toxic person when you thought of doing it and you may look a little less often for the negative shock and awe horrors that the news shows us everyday.

The important part is not perfection, but it is subtlety shifting the probability, so beneficial things, rather than detrimental things, come your way. I think this is the best we can do in life. It just takes a little intentionality- a little micro-intentionality. Don't be an empty vessel lost to the four winds.

Lay “traps” for yourself that surprise you in positive ways. Make yourself feel “set up” the next time something pleasantly surprises you. You may just find that little satisfaction of knowing you played a part in your own success- a feeling that drives you forward. And, even when the bad times inevitably come, allow yourself to connect the dots, so you can see what to avoid for next time, so you learn how to better play the odds. Before long, you'll start getting where you want to go. I guarantee it!