On panic

Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.