Chapter 10 Average probability can beat worry

When we are afraid of being struck by lightning or overturned by a train, just thinking about the average probability of these things happening will at least make us laugh to death. I grew up on a farm in Missouri.One day, when I was helping my mother pick cherries, I burst into tears.My mother asked me, "Gary, why are you crying?" I choked up and replied, "I'm afraid of being buried alive." At that time, my heart was always full of worries: when the storm came, I was worried that I would be killed by lightning; A big boy named James White would cut off my two big ears--just like he threatened to do.I am worried, afraid that girls will make fun of me when I take off my hat and bow to them; I am worried that no girl will marry me in the future; worry.I pictured us getting married in a country church, and going back to the farm in a carriage with tassels on it...but how am I supposed to keep talking to her all the way back to the farm?How to do this?How to do it?When I was farming, I would often spend hours thinking about these "earth-shattering" big questions.

As the days went by, I gradually realized that 99% of the things I was worried about never happened.For example, as I said just now, I used to be very afraid of thunder and lightning.But now I know that no matter what year it is, the probability of me being struck by lightning is only about 1 in 350,000. My fear of being buried alive was even more ridiculous.It didn't occur to me that even before the invention of mummification—one in ten million people might be buried alive—yet I used to cry out of fear of it. One in eight people may die of cancer, and if I had to worry about it, I should worry about getting cancer instead of being struck by lightning or buried alive.

In fact, what I have just said are the things I worried about as a child and adolescence.But many of our grown-up worries are almost as ludicrous.If we could just stop worrying, we would be able to assess whether our worries are worth it based on the average rate at which things happen, so I think you and I should be able to eliminate 99% of our worries. The most famous insurance company in the world—Lloyd's of London—has made enormous fortunes from people worrying about things that rarely happen.Lloyd's of London is betting some people that the disaster they fear will almost never happen.They don't call it a gamble, though, they call it insurance, which is actually a gamble based on average rates.The big insurance company has a good track record for 200 years, and unless human nature changes, it can go on for at least another 5,000 years.And it's just insurance for your shoes, insurance for your boat, using the average rate to assure you that those disasters happen, not as common as most people think.

If we examine the so-called average rates, we will be amazed at what we find.For example, if I knew that within five years I would have to fight a battle like Gettysburg, I would be horrified.I will definitely try my best to increase my life insurance; I will write a will and sell all my belongings.I'd say, "I probably won't make it through this war, so I'd better live the rest of my years." But in fact, according to the average rate, in peacetime, between the ages of 50 and 55, every 1,000 The number of deaths per individual was about the same as the 163,000 soldiers killed per 1,000 at the Battle of Gettysburg.

One summer I met the Herbert Salingees on the shores of Lake Ligon in the Canadian Rockies.Mrs. Sullinger was a very calm and self-possessed woman, and she gave me the impression that she was never anxious.One evening, as we sat in front of a roaring fire, I asked her if she was ever troubled by worry. "Worries?" she said. "My life was almost ruined by worry. Before I learned how to conquer worry, I lived in the torment of worry for 11 years. At that time, I was very short-tempered and irritable. I lived all day long. In a state of intense tension. I take the bus from home to San Francisco every week to do the grocery shopping, but even when I do, I worry like hell: Maybe I'll put the iron on the ironing board again Maybe the house burned down, maybe my maid ran away and left the kids alone, maybe the kids were out on their bikes and got hit by a car... I used to break out in a cold sweat thinking about these things when I was shopping, Would rush out of the shop and catch the bus home to see if everything was fine. No wonder my first marriage didn't work out.

“My second husband was a lawyer—he was a calm, rational person who never worried about anything. Whenever I was nervous or anxious, he would Say to me: 'Don't panic, let's just think about it... What are you really worried about? Let's look at the average rate and see if this is even possible.' “As an example, I remember one time when we were in New Mexico. We were driving from Albuquerque to the Kasbah Caves on a dirt road and we had a terrible storm on the way. "The road was muddy and the car was slipping and I couldn't control it. I thought we were going to slide into a ditch on the side of the road, but my husband kept saying to me: 'I'm going slow now, nothing will happen. Even if the car slides into a ditch, we won't get hurt according to the average rate.' His composure and confidence infected me, and I finally calmed down.

"One summer, we went camping in the Tokon Valley in the Canadian Rockies. One night, our tent was pitched at 7,000 feet above sea level, and there was a sudden storm that seemed to tear our tent to shreds. Tent It was tied to a wooden platform with ropes, and the tent shook, swayed, and screeched in the wind. Every minute I thought: our tent is going to be blown down, it's going to be blown into the sky Yes. I was really freaking out, but my husband kept saying: "'My dear, we have several Indian guides who know everything. They have camped in these mountains for 60 years, and this camp has been here for many years, but it has not been blown up until now. .According to the average rate, we will not be blown off tonight. And even if we are blown off, we can go to another camp. Why be so nervous?...'I relaxed and slept very well in the middle of the night Comfortable.

"A few years ago, polio swept through our part of California. I would have panicked and panicked. But my husband told me to keep calm and we took all the precautions we could Method: Keeping children out of public places, school, and movies for a while. After contacting the Department of Health, we learned that even the worst polio outbreak ever in California At the time of the epidemic, only 1,835 children in the entire state of California were infected with the disease. Usually it is only between 200 and 300. Although these figures still sound scary, it makes us feel: according to the average rate, The chances of a child becoming infected are really slim.

"'According to the average rate, this kind of thing can't happen', this sentence has eliminated 90% of my worries and made my life for the past 20 years beautiful and peaceful." When I look back on my past few decades, I see that most of my worries were also asking for trouble.James Grant told me that his experience was the same.He is the big boss of the Grant Wholesale Company in Franklin, New York.Each time he would wholesale 10-15 truckloads of oranges and other fruits from Florida.He told me that he used to think of many boring questions, such as what if the train crashes?What if the fruit rolls all over the ground?What if the car happens to pass over a bridge and the bridge suddenly collapses?Of course, these fruits are insured, but he is still worried that if he does not deliver the fruits on time, he may lose his market.He even worried that he had a stomach ulcer from worrying too much, so he went to the doctor to check him out.The doctor told him that there was nothing wrong with him but that he was too nervous.

"That's when I understood," he said, "and I started asking myself some questions. I said to myself, 'Look, James Grant, how many truckloads of fruit have you wholesaled over the years?' And the answer was, 'Probably More than 25,000 cars.' Then I asked myself: 'How many of these cars have been in an accident?' The answer was: 'Oh - about 5 cars.' Then I said to myself: 'A total of 25,000 cars, only 5 car accidents, do you know what that means? The ratio is 1 in 5,000. In other words, on average, based on your past experience, the probability of your car being in an accident is 5000:1, so What are you worried about?"

"Then I said to myself, 'Well, maybe the bridge will fall.' And I asked myself, 'In the past, how many cars have you lost because of a bridge fall?' No.' And I said to myself, 'Aren't you stupid to worry about a bridge that never fails, and a one-in-five-thousand chance of a train wreck, making you sick?' "When I look at it this way," James Grant told me, "I feel like I was really stupid. So I make a split-second decision to let averages take care of me—from now on. After that, I never bothered with my 'stomach ulcer'." When El Smith was governor of New York, I used to hear him say to his political opponents who attacked him, "Let's go to the record... let's go to the record." And then he would tell a lot of the facts.The next time you worry about what might happen, let us learn from this wise Mr. Al Smith, and let us check the records of the past to see if there is any reason for our anxiety.And that's exactly what Fredrey Markstadt did when he was worried about lying in his grave.Here's the story he told an adult education class in New York: "In early June 1994, I was lying in a foxhole near Omaha Beach. I was serving with the 999th Signal Company, and our unit had just arrived in Normandy. I took one look at the rectangular foxhole on the ground and thought to myself Said, 'This looks like a tomb.' When I lay down to sleep in it, it felt more like a tomb, and I couldn't help but say to myself, 'Maybe this is my tomb.' At night At 11 o'clock, the German bombers started flying over and the bombs were falling. I was so scared that I couldn't sleep. The first three days, I couldn't sleep. By the fourth and fifth night, I almost had a nervous breakdown. I knew that if If I don't do something right away, I'm going to lose my mind. So I remind myself, 'It's been 5 nights and I'm alive and well, and so is our group, Only two were slightly wounded. And they were not wounded by German bombs, but by fragments of our own flak.' I decided to do something constructive to Allayed my worries. So I built a thick wooden roof over the foxhole to protect myself from shrapnel. "I calculated the position and distance and said to myself: 'I can only be killed in this deep and narrow foxhole if the bomb hits directly.' So I calculated the ratio of direct hits, about Less than one ten-thousandth. Thinking this way, after two or three nights, I calmed down, and even when enemy planes attacked, I slept very peacefully." The U.S. Navy also often uses the figures calculated by the average rate to boost the morale of soldiers.A former Navy man told me that when he and his shipmates were assigned to a tanker, they were terrified.The tanker was carrying high-grade gasoline, so they all thought that if the tanker was hit by a torpedo, it would explode and everyone would die. But the U.S. Navy has their way.The naval forces sent them some statistics, pointing out that out of 100 tankers hit by torpedoes, 60 did not sink into the sea; and out of 40 tankers that actually sank into the sea, only 5 tankers sank within 5 minutes sunk.That is to say, there is enough time for them to jump off the ship and escape, and the possibility of dying on board is very small.Does this help the morale of the army? "Knowing those averages just took my worries away," said Clyde Mars, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Based on the average numbers, we probably wouldn't die here." So, to break the habit of worrying before it destroys you, here is rule number three: "Let's look at previous records and let's ask ourselves based on the average rate: What is the fear of happening now, what is the chance that it might happen?"