Be Outraged At The Things You Control

"By spending more time focusing on our personal choices and depending less on what the government or our neighbors are doing, we can be more confident that our “outrage” and behaviors are appropriately managed in pursuit of our own happiness."

Eighteen years ago, I was sitting at the kitchen counter when my (then 16-year-old) track star son, Drew, announced he was going for a long run on one of the forest trails near our home. I could see his mother becoming anxious as he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and a handful of mixed nuts from the jumbo-sized Costco jar on the counter. Mom announced, “I don’t want you running in the woods—I heard there was a mountain lion spotted there a few days ago.”

Drew glanced over at me for a little fatherly support, and I mentioned that the odds of him getting mauled by a mountain lion were about as high as being pecked to death by a flock of marauding ducks. While my snide comment didn’t score me any relationship points with Mom, it allowed Drew to sneak out the door for his planned run.

A couple of hours later, Drew returned safely home from cougar country, and during dinner, he asked his mother if he could borrow her car for the evening to meet up with some friends. Without batting an eye, Linda handed him the keys, told him to be careful, and instructed him to be home at a decent hour.

From a philosophical perspective, I found the whole event fascinating. In Montana, there has only been one recorded death caused by a mountain lion, yet the state ranks fourth in the nation for teen driving deaths, with 36.3 deaths per 100,000 teen drivers. Given those facts, why all the fuss over running in the woods, but so little outrage over driving into town to meet friends?

I stumbled upon risk consultant Peter Sandman’s work years ago while reading the book Freakonomics, in which he was interviewed. Sandman specializes in three areas:

(1) scaring people who are ignoring something legitimately risky;
(2) calming down people who are freaking out over something that isn’t risky; and
(3) guiding people who are freaking out over something that is legitimately risky.

According to Sandman, there is almost no correlation between what is dangerous and what upsets people. In other words, the things that kill people and the things that regularly upset people are rarely the same. To help clients respond appropriately to risk, he developed the following formula: Risk = Hazard + Outrage, where hazard is the technical (real) component of a risk, and outrage is the social component—or personal response—to the hazard, which may or may not be appropriate. To effectively mitigate a risk, communities (or individuals) need to not only reduce the hazard but also demonstrate an appropriate amount of outrage toward the given hazard.

For context, here are a few statistics:

• The odds of being killed in a mass shooting are 1 in 110,154—about the same as being killed by a dog or by legal execution for a capital crime.
• The risk of dying in a foreign-born terrorist attack is 1 in 45,808.
• You have a greater chance of being killed by moving furniture: 1 in 4,230. (Side note: My wife Linda had me moving some furniture a couple of weeks ago, and when I expressed my outrage at possibly being crushed while doing her bidding, she quickly reminded me that the risk of being killed by a family member is 1 in 81,000.)
• The risk of dying in an automobile accident is 1 in 113.
• The risk of dying from heart disease or cancer is 1 in 7.
• Overall risk of dying: 1:1

Studies have shown that humans tend to fear the perceived dangers of risks they can’t control more than the actual dangers of risks they do control. In other words, we fear the low-probability cougar attack—something outside our control—more than the far more probable teenage driving death, especially when we control access to the car keys.

In the same way, it’s our natural default to blame forces outside our immediate control—like Big Pharma, illegal immigrants, or misguided government policies—for negative outcomes, rather than focus our energy on behaviors within our control that have historically ensured greater levels of personal and national security. For example, dying in a motor vehicle accident is more likely than being killed in a plane crash, but flying requires surrendering control of safety to the pilot, which can feed our fears.

Truth be told, if each of us managed our own lives by eating healthier, getting regular checkups, driving the speed limit, and avoiding texting while driving, we could significantly reduce the risk of senseless deaths. Unfortunately, it’s in our nature to get the Risk = Hazard + Outrage formula wrong. When we do, our irrational fears rob us of many of our freedoms—especially when we focus more on what the government can do, rather than on what we can do personally.

To deal effectively with the risks of being human, we need to focus our energy on the things that have the greatest positive impact. Let’s say each of us has 100 units of energy available for living a full and joyous life. The hazards affecting our well-being are varied—some outside our control, and some within it—so how should we allocate those energy units?

I recommend dialing back our outrage over hazards we can’t control to, say, 30 units of energy, and increasing the energy we spend on behaviors under our immediate and personal control to 70 units. If you want to see fewer unnecessary deaths, spend 70% of your time outraged at things like distracted driving, and only 30% arguing about whether Congress needs to react to every calamity reported by the 24/7 news cycle.

Every time I visit a country overseas, I keep my eyes and ears open for evidence of more freedom, more opportunity, or a better quality of life than what I enjoy in Montana. But time and again, I find myself convinced that America in general—and Montana specifically—offers me the greatest opportunities to control the hazards that significantly impact my life, while also allowing me to avoid many of the hazards created by others that increase my risk of calamity.

I can’t control federal policy on Social Security, but I can live within my means and invest a portion of every paycheck to secure my financial future. It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness—so 70% of our energy should be focused on lighting candles, and 30% on encouraging others to do the same.

The key isn’t to avoid outrage altogether. Instead, the answer is to ensure our outrage is appropriate and properly focused. My chairmanship of the Frontier Institute’s board falls within the 30% of “outrage” energy I direct toward things I can’t personally control. The other 70% is focused on the things I can control—physical fitness and health, financial stewardship, self-improvement, maintaining healthy relationships, making good choices, and so on.

The 21st-century news cycle depends on its ability to outrage us. When it persuades us to become more outraged at things we can’t control than at the things we can, we risk surrendering our liberty. We may support policies that inadequately address the problem—but more tragically, we can find ourselves less free. Getting “outrage” wrong is a leading cause of bigger government, higher taxes, and runaway inflation.

One thing continues to ring true: the pursuit of happiness is driven primarily by what individuals do—and has very little to do with what others do. By spending more time focusing on our personal choices and depending less on what the government or our neighbors are doing, we can be more confident that our “outrage” and behaviors are appropriately managed in pursuit of our own happiness.