Resilience

[I received an electronic Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review.]

You could be excused for thinking that a book about preparing for the Corona virus pandemic is perhaps a bit out of date, but back in March you might have been excused for thinking that everything would be back to normal in two weeks. Tsipursky makes a convincing case that the COVID-19 plague will be effecting us in meaningful ways for at least five more years. And even with all the disruption it has caused so far, few of us (from what I can tell) have given much serious thought to how things will continue to be different next month, let alone next year. So a book about preparing about what is yet to come is not so ridiculous as it may at first appear.

Tsipursky offers advise for individual and families on the one hand and for companies and organizations on the other. The counsels he offers will prove to be helpful not only for the current situation, but for all the long-term crises that the future will bring. He begins with what I consider the most important subject: the maladaptive ways our minds mis-process information and cause us to do dumb things that just don't help us or anybody. He goes on to talk about specific approaches that families and companies can take to make sure that they are planning for reality, not for an optimistic misguided fantasy future.

The chapter on thought fallacies is instructive and wise. I had to stop reading and hit myself when he explained about Anchoring, which is our tendency to treat the first things we learn as of permanent truth and importance, and not notice when new information comes out. I realized how I had done that very thing with the news of the novel corona virus; several weeks after the news began I realized that my thinking on the subject was already severely out of date, as I had been quietly and unintentionally ignoring news that significantly expanded or contradicted something I had already accepted as truth.

[The realization of my own fallacious thinking made me wish there were a service that would, for example, send you an email after something important has been in the news for a while and tell you about a particular fallacy you may be committing yourself. For example, “Weeks ago you heard that this disease is isolated. Have you really noticed that that is no longer true? Are you keeping up with reality or are you anchoring?”]

His advise for business is not of any particular interest to me and I will not comment on it, but his suggestions for persons and families is crucial for everybody. He gives brief but important counsel about the need to prepare adequate for such human needs as safety (ignore that wimpy “two weeks” advise you heard at the beginning of this particular crisis), connection, and exploration. I was especially impress that he mentions the need for love, which he defines as doing good for others during a pandemic or other long-term emergency.

I am glad I read this book. It will help me prepare better for the next year of this crisis, and for whatever else my future holds.