this week's Maybe Baby concerns the inflection point where a situation becomes intolerable enough that some action or risk must be taken in order to change the situation. i'm pretty sure it's universal human wisdom, but boy does it also feel laser-targeted at me specifically :)
The region-beta paradox describes the phenomenon whereby, sometimes, a person may benefit from being worse off versus just mildly off, because being worse off may mobilize them to take action to address the problem, whereas being mildly off can lead them to stagnancy. This means that, strangely, people may heal, recover, or move on more quickly from experiences that are more intensely negative than experiences that are just unpleasant.
As someone who, by nature, favors thinking over doing, which can be paralyzing as a personality trait, my adult life has led me to venerate the inverse. Introspection can only get you so far. Region-beta makes sense of this; it presumes that, in matters of indecision, action is almost always better than inaction, because it will thrust you out of the middle and into the margins where, positive or negative, you’ll have a lot more to work with.
