We humans are a reactive bunch. Because, I mean, it’s basically easier to just do what we want or what feels good and clean it all up later, right? (Not really, but based on our actions and our tendency to think we are the only ones that matter in this world, we don’t believe that).

In the early 80s, a few years in to my work on a secured psychiatric unit as charge nurse, I had a massive grand mal (tonic clonic) seizure while I was out on the floor. The rest of the staff thought I was going to die–they even went so far as to call a code because I was cyanotic and unresponsive for much longer than they were comfortable with. Although I was diagnosed with epilepsy after having other, focal seizures, the grand mall was a direct result of medication I was prescribed.

That unit, which housed many folks on medicines that lower the seizure threshold and others dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, had no readily available airways to use in an emergency. We didn’t have a way to secure the patients if emergency personnel had to enter. After my seizure, they taped two airways to the walls in each wing, and they put a special procedure in place to make the unit more secure in an emergency.

Similarly, a patient in the secure wing set her mattress on fire (it was a fun place to work), but that section of rooms had no fire extinguisher. After the fire, they installed two and the rules for visiting and entering the unit changed, with close inspection of everything brought in.

I hear what you’re thinking. It’s good that they learned from their mistakes, yes?

Well, sure. And it’s a damn good thing nobody died in either case, simply because people didn’t take the time to consider what should have been obvious (or what, in the case of the fire extinguisher, was the law). Unfortunately, doctors still prescribe dangerous medicine without warning patients of the potentially fatal side effects, and many folks completely ignore fire hazards. So, while staff where I worked learned from their mistakes and made some positive changes, we will continue to see people die because our go-to is to react, rather than to think through and plan ahead.

In 1977, there was a devastating fire near my home at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, KY. 168 people died, and they died because some safety precautions had not been made law and were not in place, and some were simply ignored. That fire changed many of the country’s fire codes, the most visible of which is the requirement for signs giving the occupancy limits in public buildings or places of assembly.

Oh, but this is good, right? Now there is a standard that businesses have to follow, so there is a better chance people will get out alive in a fire. Well…yes and no. The law is a good one, but it’s useless if businesses or people choose to overlook groups that exceed occupancy. Even the experience of such a tragedy often doesn’t seem to affect people, unless it happens to them. The year after that fire, a teacher in our high school refused to let students leave the building during a fire until we cleaned up our lab stations. Fortunately for us, it ended up being only a drill.

We don’t like to take the proactive, sometimes more difficult way. We decide that climate change is a hoax, so the world is flooded in torrential rains; cities are destroyed by fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes; and thousands die from heat stroke during unprecedented temperature spikes. We really want to spend time in that place that is always overcrowded and filled with fire hazards, so we do, and some of us die. Our go-to in dealing with other nations is war rather than diplomacy, so people flood the borders of a country that doesn’t want and can’t support them; trust is destroyed and our economic system is battered; we spend more on defense than on taking care of those suffering in our own land; and we are one push button away from annihilating the entire world.

Is being proactive hard? It takes cooperation and a little more effort at the beginning, but once everything is laid out, it can reduce suffering on so many levels. Oh, but don’t suggest it. You will be shunned or bullied, and your ideas will be dismissed.

We are reactive in nearly every aspect of our lives, even the seemingly small things. What do you do when you see a mouse or a spider in your home or office? I mean, be honest. What is your first thought?

Kill it, of course.

But have you ever wondered why violence is your go-to answer for a tiny creature who is doing you no harm?

We are taught that killing is the best way to get rid of something that scares us or something that we think will make our lives easier. We do it with the trees of the forests. We do it with people and countries, and we do it with even the tiniest of animals. Yes, it takes effort and compassion and some thought to work out ways to live peaceably with others, but everybody wins in the end when we do.

There are dozens of ways to live in comfort without leveling the forests and an equal number of ways to keep unwanted animals out of your home or business. We don’t *have* to spend billions on national defense or send hundreds of thousands of our people to their deaths in wars. We choose to. And by choosing the easy way out, we are destroying our world and any hope we have for the future.