Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 82

The ten-point scale.

It has become a common measurement in our time. Medical people ask: “How would you describe your pain on a ten-point scale?” If I assign my pain ten points, that means it is unbearable, the worst pain I have ever felt. The aim of the scale is to quantify a subjective experience.

That may be a fair way to speak of how much we enjoy or dislike a movie or how delectable or disgusting we find a casserole. Maybe the ten-point scale is also useful in putting life’s experiences, especially negative ones, in perspective.

Several days ago a little old lady backed into our new car and left a big dent in the driver’s side. She was at fault, her insurance will fix it, no one was hurt, and we are left with an unsightly car door for a week or so before I drop it off at a body shop to be repaired. I assign that a two. In the course of human events, it was so minor—a minuscule annoyance, an inconvenience, a flea bite—a one or a two.

I think I would give ten points only to a situation of utter devastation and hopelessness. Seeing my family herded into a gas chamber to be exterminated would be a ten. I think I would give a nine to a member of my family being raped or murdered or completing suicide. I might survive it, but I would go forward broken, nursing an almost unbearable wound in my heart forever.

My point is that many of us overreact to life’s stressors. We “catastrophize” (psychotherapist Albert Ellis liked to say) over life’s dented doors.

And yes, my family tires of hearing me ask: “On a ten-point scale, how many points should you give that?”