Can Norway Hold on to Optimism?

July 25, 2011 - PRLog -- Monday is Dr. Russ Busster Day.  Over the weekend we had one more big news event, this time from peaceful Norway that reeked with pessimism delivering terror, hopelessness and helplessness.  We are shocked, frightened and grieving, but do we have to lose our optimism and let pessimism prevail?

I think not, because optimism is our only hope to stave off that overwhelming feeling of pessimism.  Optimism is the tougher choice requiring more effort to maintain.

In a recent post, I discussed the irony of how much stress, anxiety and fear we have about day-to-day living in current times when these same times provide less and less threat to life from disease, pestilence, and accidents.  I noted that a century ago, life expectancy was one third less than it is today.

Within a few days of that post, a man named Anders Breivik, admitted to gunning down over 86 individuals mostly adolescents and youth on an island near Oslo, Norway.  He killed an additional 7 in an Oklahoma style blast in downtown Oslo.

I understand how hundreds, even thousands can be killed by a single individual in a bombing or by flying planes into the twin towers.  But, I am still trying to fathom how a single gunman killed that many with a rifle and handgun.  Not even Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid, or John Dillinger had that many notches in their guns.

The real irony may be that the Norwegians had truly adapted to the reversal of the 80/20  dangerousness to safety principle I outlined in the above mentioned post.  I opined that 100 years ago 80% of the situations people faced day to day might be considered dangerous and even life threatening, but that now only 20 percent might be considered such.

Norway with a population of 4.9 million, that is equivalent to the population of New Mexico times 4 plus 500,000, has prided itself on a low crime rate and a free and open society.  A society open to differences, one willing to tolerate the immigration of Muslims and other ethnic minorities.  Get this - their crime rate is so low that their maximum prison sentence for even the worst of crimes is 21 years.  Further, the Nobel Peace Prize is given out in Oslo, not Sweden like all the other Nobel’s.

In other words, Anders Breivik could only have been this successful in his one man killing spree because these people were totally unprepared.  There was no SWAT Team on the island ready to enter the foray within minutes, no terrorism management plan, no code orange or red.

Of course, it really doesn’t make any difference how he pulled it off, he did it.  The killings represent another deadly and dreadful set of circumstances which have no meaning except that which we put upon them.  Yes, for those who lost family and friends it is particularly tragic and numbing. Their grief is great and will be with them a long time.

But, regardless of the losses, the meaning of the events is up to us.  We can decide that the world is a hostile place and that there is no hope, and that terrorism will prevail, or the people of Norway can stand firm on their values and not let some mentally unstable individual and try to rob them of their collective self-worth as a nation.                                                                                                                                                                                              

Archbishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien had these words of optimism that can serve as today’s Bussters (USA Today, front page, Monday, July 25, 2011):

   * We will not let fear define us.
   * We will fight for the values that were attacked.

According to his 1500 plus page manifesto, Breivik would like to end the Muslim immigration.  The Norwegians now have the optimistic choice to stand by their values, to keep their society free, open and peaceful.  Perhaps they will need to put some protections into place to prevent another worst case scenario like this one, but there is a dicey balance between ensuring safety and limiting freedom as we have seen inherent in our own response to terrorism.   A “knee-jerk” response limiting personal and collective freedom would be just the kind of pessimism Breivik would wish upon us.    

The real value of these tragic and hardship situations are that they teach us how hard it is to find and hold on to optimism.  We can’t let one terrorist dictate our optimism and lead us into pessimism.

What do you think?

http://www.drrussbuss.com

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