The Psychological Trap That’s Making Your Life Fester

Imagine yourself in two alternative scenarios:

Scenario A: You email an acquaintance about a bike they’re selling, offering $200. They accidentally reply to you with an message intended for their spouse: “I’m tired of these greedy losers always scrimping for deals.”

Scenario B: You email a stranger about a bike they’re selling, offering $200. They accidentally reply to you with a message intended for their spouse: “I’m tired of these greedy losers always scrimping for deals.”

Now, ask yourself:

1. Which insult would hurt more in the immediate moment?
2. Which insult do you think would leave you feeling worse five minutes later?

If you’re like most, you’d say Scenario A for both—being insulted by a neighbor would hurt more immediately and five minutes later.

Congrats!

You score 50%. A solid D.

Based on the findings from psychologist Daniel Gilbert’s paper, ‘The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad‘: 

• Your acquaintance’s insults would indeed hurt more immediately.
• But five minutes later, your acquaintance’s insults would hurt less than the stranger’s.

How so?

Gilbert attributes this phenomenon to what he calls, ‘The Region Beta’ paradox, a name so mediocre it proves its own point. Out of principle, I prefer to call it the ‘Not So Bad’ paradox¹.

Semantics aside, understanding this psychological phenomenon can help us avoid complacency traps and experience more extraordinary lives.

Mommy to the Rescue (But Only When It’s Dire)

Why does the more intense pain from your acquaintance’s insult fade faster than the lesser pain from the stranger’s insult? 

Because, Gilbert explains, it triggers your “psychological immune system.” 

As I’ve detailed before in the dangers of self-justification, this system is like an over-coddling mommy. When you get a big psychological owie, she rushes in to soothe your delicate identity with lies and excuses. “Oh, Sam’s always a jerk,” or “You were just lowballing for fun and would happily pay what’s fair.

And this doesn’t only happen when you’re insulted. Your overprotective mental mommy will step into heal any trauma: 

• Broken relationship.
• Destroyed career.
• Ruined finances. 
• Etcetera.

Thanks to this psychological immune system, we recover from those painful experiences much faster than we’d predict—and thrive when what was broken wasn’t spectacular in the first place.

But here’s the catch: If the injury is minor, like an insult from a stranger in a strange land, your psychological immune system will remain on her couch worrying about broader issues, like why you aren’t more popular, attractive, or successful. So those minor injuries are left to fester—ultimately causing more pain in aggregate than a major injury. 

I’m Festering Everywhere!

The ‘Not So Bad’ Paradox insidiously denies our potential in all aspects of life—unless we’re fortunate enough for something horrible to happen that gets us (and our psychological immune systems) off our couch to take action.

Some personal examples. 

• Mouth breathed for 20 years until breaking my nose again finally gave the excuse to get surgery on my deviated septum². (The image atop this post is me the next day.)
• Lived through Vancouver’s crappy winters for three years until our affordable apartment’s demolition pushed us to flee to Medellin, starting our eternal-summering life.
• Hit a wall, not knowing what to do next in life. Decided to experiment with an idea from a podcast, logging everything I do. That evolved into my priceless life-guiding system.
• Kim’s blow-ups got too frequent and forceful to tolerate, so desperately tried giving her a daily grateful. Worked so well I’m still going thousands of days later.
• Was stagnating with The Zag until Google algorithm updates wiped out 95% of my traffic and ad income, which compelled me to launch more exciting and impactful projects—like Systematic Brilliance and another in the works for finding your superpower.

All were drastic improvements to my life. So why don’t I make more of them proactively?

Stop Letting ‘Not So Bad’ Ruin Your Life

Before ‘Not So Bad’ makes things worse, beat it to the punch. Shoot for ‘Oh Crap, Here We Go! AAAAAAH!!!! Whoa. Phew. That’s Better’ instead.

Consider these three strategies:

1. The Catastrophe Catalyst

Think of the dull pains in your life. Then imagine something crazy happened to make them waaaay worse. What would you do? Do it now. Don’t wait for the explosion.

2. The Perpetually Perfect Gap

Think about your perpetually perfect day—a day in your ideal life where you are challenging yourself in ways you enjoy, not exhausting energy on meaninglessness. Compare that to your current day. What are the biggest gaps? What can you break and rebuild from scratch?

3. The Wise Move

Least likely anyone will do, but most effective: Ask a wise person you know for their frank advice, then actually heed it³. 

The broad takeaway I can’t stop thinking about after reading ‘The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad’, and that I hope I’ve conveyed to you, is this:

Proactively break what’s not so bad, but certainly not awesome. Distrust your instinct that, “This is going to hurt too much for too long.” And trust your psychological immune system’s healing ability instead. You’ll be glad you did.

Thanks for reading,

Chris

P.S. If you’re struggling to identify and act on your ‘not so bad’ but festering issues, consider implementing a practice that helps you look at life more broadly and objectively, then make steady progress. My Systematic Brilliance program can help. I’m full for August but getting on the waitlist gives you priority for the next round.

Hammer This Idea Into Your Head By Watching the Video Version

‘Not So Bad’ Footnotes Actually Worth Reading

1. The irony of the name, ‘Region Beta Paradox’:
   It’s not terrible. If Gilbert had called it the “Non-monotonic Hedonic Intensity-Duration Phenomenon,” someone would have taken it upon themselves to give it a better name. But because ‘Region Beta Paradox’ is bad but not terrible, nobody bothered. And I think the name’s forgettability is part of the reason why it’s not as well-known as it deserves to be. ↩︎
2.  Are you a mouth breather?
   Consider giving your life a literal and figurative breath of fresh air by retraining yourself to nose breath.
   Here’s my story for tips and inspo: How to Stop Mouth Breathing and Become a Nose Breather. ↩︎
3. ​​“The advice you don’t want to hear is usually the advice you need.” – Oliver Burkeman.
   That’s advice is worth listening to. But how? One idea I tried: Source a list of trustworthy pieces of advice, then poll people who know me on which ones I do the worst job of following. It was a rewarding adventure. I advise you try it.
   Read my story here: How to Get the Advice You Need But Don’t Want to Hear. ↩︎