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photo credit: paparutzi
Soon after the election last year in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib wrote about the opportunity presented by the financial crisis for Barack Obama. Perhaps he was simply reacting to Rahm Emanuel’s statement that, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Seib summed up that perspective on crisis by saying that:
The thing about a crisis is that it creates a sense of urgency. Actions that once appeared optional suddenly seem essential.
That really captures the essence of a crisis mentality. Unfortunately it only looks at the silver lining while ignoring the cloud in front of it. The assumption is that we all can see the dangers of the crisis cloud. Unfortunately the only part of the crisis cloud that most people see is the front side – the possibility with any crisis that we will fail. The problem is that right in front of the silver lining he spoke of there is the hidden backside of the crisis cloud which we conveniently forget.
Because of the sense of urgency that tends to accompany a crisis we not only begin to view once optional courses of action as essential, in many cases we go beyond that and begin to view once forbidden courses of action as excusable.