Chapter 15 Think about the average probability of something happening

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 also 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; I am also worried about what the first sentence I will say to my wife after we get married And 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 plowing the fields, I would often spend hours thinking about these 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 will die of cancer, and if I had to worry about it, I should worry about getting cancer instead of being struck by lightning or being 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 stop worrying, we would be able to assess whether our worries are worth it based on the average probability of things happening, 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 the average person 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 probabilities.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 just insures your shoes and boats, and uses the average probability to assure you that those disasters happen, which are not as common as most people think.

If we examine the so-called average probabilities, 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 the Battle of Gettysburg, I would be horrified.I will definitely try my best to increase my life insurance; I will make a will and sell all my belongings.I'd say, "I probably won't make it through this war, so I'd better live my remaining years like this." But in fact, according to the average probability, 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 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 Said to me: 'Don't panic, let's think about it... What are you really worried about? Let's look at the average probability, is it possible for this to happen.' "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 half way through a terrible storm that was raging. "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 slid into a ditch, we wouldn't get hurt based on average odds." His composure and confidence infected me and I managed to calm down.

"One summer we were camping in the Tokon Valley in the Canadian Rockies. One night, our tent was pitched at 7,000 feet above sea level when a storm came and it looked as if our tent would be torn to shreds. The tent was built with rope Strapped to a wooden platform, the tent outside was shaking, shaking and screeching in the wind. Every minute I thought: Our tent is going to be blown down, blown into the sky I was really freaking out but my husband kept saying, 'Honey, we have several Indian guides who know everything about it. They've been camping in these mountains for 60 years, this The camp has been here for many years, but it has not been blown off until now. According to the average probability, it will not be blown off tonight. And even if it is blown off, we can go to another camp, You don't need to be so nervous.'... After listening to his words, I felt relaxed and slept very comfortably in the second half of the night.

"A few years ago, polio hit the area where we lived--California. I would have panicked and panicked all the time. But my husband told me to keep calm, and we did everything we could. preventive measures: keeping children out of public places, school, and movies for a while. After contacting the Department of Health, we learned that even the most serious case of children in California has so far When paralysis was prevalent, only 1,835 children were infected with the disease in the entire state of California. Usually only between 200 and 300 people. Although these numbers still sound scary, they really make us feel: according to the average probability It seems that the chances of a child being infected are very slim.

"'According to the average probability, this kind of thing can't happen', this sentence has eliminated 90% of my worries and made my life beautiful and peaceful for the past 20 years." 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.Every time he has to buy 10-15 carts 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 developed 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 figured it out," 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 There are more than 25,000 cars.’ And I asked myself, ‘How many of those cars have been in an accident?’ The answer was, ‘Oh—about 5 cars.’ And I said to myself, ‘25,000 in total. Do you know what that means if only 5 of your cars are involved in an accident? The probability is 1 in 5,000. In other words, on average, based on your past experience, there is a 5,000 chance that your car will be involved in an accident: 1, so what are you worried about?"

"Then I said to myself, 'Well, maybe the bridge is going to fall.' And I asked myself, 'In the past, how many cars have you lost because of a bridge falling down?' The answer was: 'One No.’ And then I said to myself, ‘Aren’t you a fool to make yourself sick to the point of worrying about a bridge that hasn’t collapsed at all, and a one in five thousand chance of a train wreck ?' "When I look at it this way," James Grant told me, "I feel like I was really stupid. So I make up my mind at that moment, and let the average probability take care of me— Since then, I have never bothered with my 'stomach ulcer'." I often hear Al Smith, the governor of New York, attack his political opponents: "Let's go to the record... let's go to the record." And then he'll 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 1944, I was lying in a foxhole near Omaha Beach. I was serving with the 999th Signal Company, and our troops 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 and more like a tomb, and I couldn't help thinking to myself, 'Maybe this is my tomb.' In At 11 o'clock in the evening, the German bombers started coming, and the bombs were falling. I was so scared that I couldn't sleep. The first three days, I couldn't sleep. On the fourth or fifth night, I almost had a nervous breakdown. I know If I don't figure something out 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 eliminate My apprehension. 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." In order to boost the morale of soldiers, the U.S. Navy often uses figures calculated by average probability.A former Navy man told me how terrified he and his shipmates were when they were posted on a tanker.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 force 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, they have enough time to jump off the ship and escape, and the possibility of dying on board is very small. Do these statistics help the morale of the army? "Once I knew the averages, my worries went away," said Clyde Mars, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. , judging by the average figures, we probably won't die here."