I Am Not Dumb. But I Am Dumb-ish.

Okay, let’s rip this Band-Aid off. I got pick-pocketed in Rome. 

Without any preparation, I can tell you how not to get pickpocketed. Minimize the number of valuables you carry. Don’t draw attention to yourself as somebody who may be carrying valuables, or as somebody who may be a tourist. For the valuables you do carry, carry them in front of your body, and, for super duper security, under your clothes. 

But when you want a picture, the moment might be fleeting, so you want your iPhone at the ready. And keeping it in your front pants pocket is awkward. And everybody has a cell phone now, they’re not special, not steal-worthy. And people are generally good; they don’t go around stealing things. And besides, even when bad things happen, they generally work out in the end.

My iPhone was in the open side pocket of my backpack. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

Nobody distracted me. Nobody rammed into me. Nobody even gently brushed past me. The pickpocket was a vapor, gone (with my phone) before I even realized I’d been in their wake.

When I realized what had happened, I groaned, throwing my face to the sky, and started to laugh. I felt so dumb! I was in a city known for pickpocketing. I’d heard dozens of warnings about pickpockets. I knew how not to get pickpocketed! Yet here I was, pocket cleanly picked.

The people with me were lovely and, after checking that I was okay, started offering their help. Was “Find My Phone” turned on? Did I want to go to the police? How can I start disconnecting Apple Pay and passwords ASAP? Of course, I rebuffed all of their help. Partly because I’m a control freak, but more so because I felt bad inconveniencing them - why should they help me when I was so dumb?

Now, when not in the throes of being victimized by petty crime, I know that I am objectively not dumb. Physicians have been through so much school and passed so many standardized tests by the time we’re attending physicians that the thought “I’m worried I might be dumb,” would be well and fully extinguished if we looked at the situation rationally. But our brains love thinking in absolutes: black or white, ones and zeros, “very much yes” versus “very much no.” Our brains evolved to conserve energy wherever possible, and thinking in absolutes is one way they do so. “Fire is always hot,” would be a useful absolute for us back in our caves. “People with that skin color are always dangerous,” not so much. 

Thinking about ourselves in absolutes also prevents us from finding our lives ground to a halt by constant navel gazing. Getting caught up in whether I’m a “good” person when faced with the daily ethical dilemmas of life would paralyze me: rather than overthink my response to coming across a person who’s unhoused and asking for change or my actions when I sort the litany of charity requests in my mail, I tell myself that I’m a “good” person and move on with my day.

Coming up against something that challenges that worldview, however, is tough. A “good” person would speak up when they overhear someone in another conversation using a racial slur. But if I don’t say anything in that situation? If I don’t stop my conversation, interrupt theirs, and point out that using the slur is dehumanizing, does that make me a “bad” person? The brain’s quick, absolutist shortcuts would say yes: if I’m not “good,” then the only other option is to be “bad.” It wouldn’t take very long for me to find all sorts of ways that I must be a “bad” person because I fell short, either by a millimeter or a mile, of what a “good” person would do. 

Dan Harris recognizes that holding ourselves to absolutist standards is impractical at best and disastrous at worst. For example, he describes that when starting a meditation habit, the person who says they’re a failure if they don’t meditate daily is more likely to give up on their goal than someone who says they’re going to meditate daily-ish. A bit more get-to-the-heart-of-the-matter: maybe I’m not a “good” person for letting the overheard racial slur go without comment, but I’m a “good-ish” person for hearing it and feeling hurt over it. Feeling angry over it. Taking a quick look around to make sure nobody that slur could refer to is potentially in danger. And challenging myself to do better, to always, always try to do better.

So, I’m not good. But I am good-ish. I’m not controlling. But I am controlling-ish. Right now, here in this lovely, lovely city, I am dumb-ish. And you? If you’re in a spot of feeling low, you’re not failing: you’re thriving-ish.