I had a pit in my stomach.
I just had finished work on a college newscast that was an abject disaster.
The production crew had missed their cues. The anchors had botched their scripts. And I, the producer, had frozen like a deer in the headlights amid all this chaos.
This all resulted in a disjointed performance that was readily evident to anyone watching on their television sets. It felt as if we’d all wandered into the middle of Times Square in our underwear.
It didn’t matter that our viewership was in the dozens, not the millions. Everyone involved with the newscast was in a dour mood, even before our faculty advisor lit into us in the post-show meeting.
I felt directly responsible for the debacle. So, I emailed the advisor to apologize.
She quickly responded, stating that there was plenty of blame to go around, but that such matters were irrelevant. It was more important, she stated, for everyone to learn from the mistakes moving forward.
Onward and upward, she concluded.
I had never heard that phrase before. But after that moment, it would become all I would hear.
Whenever I found myself facing a setback, onward and upward would be a rallying cry. The three-word pep talk reminded me to focus on the future, rather than dwelling on the past.
I’m haven’t embraced this mantra alone. It’s been a rallying cry in America for generations. But is it the right one?
Time moves in one direction. And so do we.
With apologies to Benjamin Button and the best attempts of beauty products everywhere, we don’t get younger with time. We wear its impact as we mature and then decline.
The same concept is true for our society. Over the years, it’s matured from a nebulous concept into something stronger and more versatile. Someday, its decline will come. But we will continue to plow forward through that process.
These truths are self-evident. Our ancestors would be enthralled by the cultural and technological opportunities we have today. And while such innovations and adaptations are far from perfect, they still represent progress.
We don’t necessarily take all this for granted. But we have internalized onward and upward into our own processes. We aspire to land better roles throughout our careers and to improve as spouses and parents outside of the office. More broadly, we seek to innovate and drive transformational change.
This ethos has generally led to real-world rewards, spurring us to lean into the strategy ever more. But occasionally, the payoff hasn’t been there. Every now and then, we’re forced backwards, despite our best efforts to churn ahead.
And when this happens, we encounter whiplash.
Whiplash is the feeling you get when you’re riding in a car, and it stops short. It’s the jolting sensation that ensues when your momentum is halted faster than you can adjust to it.
Whiplash is particularly unpleasant because we don’t plan for it. It strikes without warning, leaving us in a daze.
Whiplash forces us to react. But that needn’t be our only response.
Few phenomena are as baffling as pandemics.
Human behavior, for all its irrationality, can be mapped into distinct patterns. We have centuries of historical texts and the work of esteemed psychologists to thank for that.
But viral microbes don’t show such predictability. And trying to forecast their attack has proven futile.
The COVID pandemic has punctuated this fact. Despite our best efforts, we’ve found ourselves one step behind at every turn.
At first, we weren’t sure how to protect ourselves from the virus. We focused on washing our hands and disinfecting surfaces, even though those efforts proved to have little effect in warding off the malady.
Gradually, we started to get the upper hand. Namely, we built strategies for preventing mass exposure to the bug.
We shifted many of our jobs away from offices. We wore face masks to the grocery store. We developed vaccines against the virus in record time and made progress with antiviral pills.
These efforts helped us approach pre-pandemic normalcy. With their assistance, we started to reopen our doors, and to restore the traditions the virus had stolen from us.
But just as the finish line seemed in sight, new variants of the virus appeared. Their presence evaded many of the defenses we’d built, halting our progress.
This reality hit hard for many of us. After getting a taste of semi-normalcy, this jolt back to the early days of the pandemic crushed our resolve. It’s led us to think that onward and upward was nothing more than a mirage.
I know this as well as anyone.
In the early days of the pandemic, I isolated myself from the world. I restricted my movements to a five-mile radius of my home for three months, only venturing outside to exercise, take a stroll, or shop for essentials. It was a demoralizing experience, even for an introvert like me.
In the many months since that period, I’ve worked relentlessly on getting back what I’d lost. I’ve reconnected with friends and family, returned to restaurants, and resumed traveling. I’ve done all this with the understanding that we were turning the corner in the pandemic, and that I’d have much more protection against the virus.
But the variants provided a brutal reality check. It turns out I was much less protected from infection than I’d hoped. And after all that time propelling ahead, the whiplash of this realization hit me hard.
I found my resiliency at its limits, and I was left frustrated at the situation at hand. But I turned my anger inwards as well, chastising myself for not anticipating such setbacks in the first place.
My experience likely wasn’t singular. I’m sure there were others out there kicking themselves for not seeing this setback coming.
But are those who wallow in regret realistic in their expectations?
Protection.
It’s the fundamental human condition.
Protection is the reason we lock our doors. Protection is the reason we put on a coat when it’s cold. Protection is the reason we curl into a ball when facing trauma.
Whiplash violates the laws of protection. It strikes with brutal efficiency, reminding us how vulnerable we really are.
We loathe that feeling of exposure. So, we play Monday Morning Quarterback, thinking about how we could have avoided the situation.
This is toxic.
For the more we dwell in the past, the less prepared we are for the future. The next bout of whiplash will jolt us back. And the one after that. And the one after that.
It’s far better to take the approach my advisor espoused. To boldly look to the future — but with a twist.
That twist is to consider all possibilities. To prepare for the best-case scenario but anticipate setbacks.
Such an approach allows us to hedge our bets. It leaves us less prone to the effects of whiplash. And it strengthens our resolve.
In an unpredictable world, that’s the best we can ask for. It’s time that we ask it over ourselves.