The Bell Curve of Comfort

Every now and then there are things in life we must do which we don't want to, or which we feel incredibly nervous about doing beforehand.  These moments can cause great anxiety for us as the anticipation causes a myriad of feelings that are difficult to process and sometimes overwhelming.  In these times of angst we often seek comfort from others, reassurance that everything will be okay.  What I have come to observe is that this comfort is not something that is guaranteed to reassure us, but rather it becomes something which can be charted on a scale.  That scale conforms to a bell curve, where the amount of relief felt is charted against the amount of comfort others offer, with too little and too much causing us to feel no relief at all.

With no reassurance and no comfort offered from others we can panic and over-think our environment and our situation to the point where it becomes too difficult for us to handle.  Comfort and reassurance offered by others however offers us relief to a point, after which the more they offer can actually cause a negative effect.  We can have so many people offering support and guidance and giving input to us that it in itself can become overwhelming and we can feel as though expectations are far higher than they really are.  At the low end of the curve most of the overreactions we convince ourselves of we know on some level are related to our imaginations exaggerating the extremity of the situation.  However at the high end of the curve, I believe the reason too much comfort and reassurance can actually have a negative impact on us is because the amount of support we receive convinces us that the extremity of the situation we have imagined in our minds is fully justified, and that everyone around us would not go to such lengths if it were not.

So where is the balance to be found?  Well one could argue that the more support we receive, the higher the hurdle we must jump over becomes.  In order to reduce that we need to have people that put things into context.  We need people that are willing to undermine the obstacle we are trying to overcome, and reduce its significance.  That act in itself however is something we see as socially taboo.  It is counter intuitive and serves to be something we actively perceive as having a negative impact on the person involved.

By contrast when things are at the low end of the curve if the same action is taken then you run the risk of discouraging the person from even trying in the first place.  If you make the obstacle to overcome seem so insignificant there can be the question that emerges in their mind of "what's the point?" and actually encourage them to give up.

The only conclusion I can draw from this observation is that the amount of support you give someone has to reflect how big that obstacle really is for them personally, and to judge for yourself where on the scale they are finding themselves thereby concluding whether you need to add more encouragement to achieve, or whether you need to reduce the achievement to something they can see as achievable.