https://www.salon.com/2018/03/03/dont-say-what-you-would-have-done-in-a-crisis/
Don’t say what you “would have done” in a crisis
Your mind believes how you’d respond, but your brain has other ideas
In the wake of the Parkland tragedy last month, the current occupant of the White House — a man who avoided serving his country in Vietnam because his feet hurt — boasted that "I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too." It's a good thing he'll likely never have to prove it. Because what we think when we're safe and cozy and what we actually do when the rubber hits the road are, for a great many of us, two very different things.
Soliders and first responders go through rigorous training to override our primitive fight or flight responses when the amygdala takes the wheel. When my friends who are combat veterans and EMTs say how they think they'd behave in an emergency, I believe them. Everybody else gets a hard "maybe." Yet panic has a strong pull, even for the pros. Why would anyone be brazen enough to say he'd run into a dangerous situation like Parkland when Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's own armed security guard reportedly did not?
Don’t say what you “would have done” in a crisis
Your mind believes how you’d respond, but your brain has other ideas
In the wake of the Parkland tragedy last month, the current occupant of the White House — a man who avoided serving his country in Vietnam because his feet hurt — boasted that "I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too." It's a good thing he'll likely never have to prove it. Because what we think when we're safe and cozy and what we actually do when the rubber hits the road are, for a great many of us, two very different things.
Soliders and first responders go through rigorous training to override our primitive fight or flight responses when the amygdala takes the wheel. When my friends who are combat veterans and EMTs say how they think they'd behave in an emergency, I believe them. Everybody else gets a hard "maybe." Yet panic has a strong pull, even for the pros. Why would anyone be brazen enough to say he'd run into a dangerous situation like Parkland when Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's own armed security guard reportedly did not?
