Introduction

Safety, don't we all enjoy the feeling of knowing there is nothing to worry about? Nothing to be afraid of? Nothing to run away from? Yes, we do! It is literally in our DNA!

But what does it actually mean to be safe? And what does it look like practically?

In this post, I explain why we as humans tend to deceive ourselves when pursuing safety and why daring to step into the dark, exploring and experimenting are actually necessary to ensure safety and security - despite the common misconception they are the opposite of safe.

Finally, I explore the question of what this means practically in everyday life.

This post covers...

1. 🕳️ The Known and The Unknown
2. 😶‍🌫️ The (Mis)conception of Safety
3. 🕰️ The Fallacy
4. 🤒 Remedy
5. 🌍 Conclusion

The Known and The Unknown

There are two parts to understanding what the safety fallacy is. The first is about understanding the common (mis)conception people have of safety. The second part is about understanding why this conception is a fallacy.

But before that, it is important to understand the concept of The Known and The Unknown, to get a grasp on what safety even is and what our conception of it is based on.

The known, represented by light, stands for everything that is familiar, everything we have already explored and thus have a clear understanding of, both in terms of how certain things behave but also how we feel about them. The known is the comfort zone, not because everything in it is necessarily good or harmless, but because we know what we are getting. There is nothing unexpected waiting for us in this known circle of light.

The unknown represents the vast and seemingly endless darkness that lies beyond this circle of light. Since it is by definition made up of that which we are unfamiliar with, the unknown is nothing but a fog of uncertain darkness. We don't know what to expect from it, because there is no light showing us exactly what lies within it.

The (Mis)conception of Safety

There exists a common belief that safety - referring to the broad spectrum of safety ranging from physical to emotional safety - is when you stay within the radius of the known and therefore when you do not exceed the limits of this known space. The argument is quite simple: "Who knows what dangers may be hiding in the darkness beyond the circle of light. You might get hurt! You might get rejected, you might get confronted with suffering, you might loose your belongings, you might lose yourself, your mind, maybe your life even! And why risk it? Why risk the comfort this known, enlightened space provides?"

The Fallacy

So why is this conception of safety a fallacy? And where is this fallacy coming from? As pretty much always, it is our mind playing tricks on us.

The first problem is that the unknown is prone to falsely being painted as this land of terror. The unknown represents the unfamiliar. And so our minds have the freedom to use this black canvas to project all of its fears onto it. "What if..." is the game our mind is fooling us with. In other words, our mind highly overestimates the dangers and highly underestimates the positive potential of the unknown (especially in our mostly harmless modern world). As a result, the reality of stepping into the dark is often far less dangerous and harmful than we presume it to be.

The second and main problem though is that our biology is programmed on a short-term focus. Just like the law of the path of least resistance, we as humans, too, instinctively tend to make choices based on short-term resistance. Stepping into the unknown is fatiguing, is challenging and literally costs our body increased amounts of energy because it needs to readapt. Because of that, our bodies instinctively resist leaving an established space of comfort.

The fallacy: When we shift the perspective from short-term to long-term, stepping into the unknown (i.e. doing things we haven't done before, experimenting with ourselves, with different activities and lifestyles, innovating and reinventing ourselves, our environment, our perspectives, our personalities) is actually much safer than staying within the borders of the known. And staying within the space of the known turns out to actually be seriously dangerous.

Why is that you may ask? Without expanding the circle of the known through reoccurring explorations into the unknown, we become incredibly limited. While the world around us is moving forward, changing and developing, we hold on tightly to this desperate hope that we won't get left behind. But reality can be harsh...

• 🍞 People learn one thing, resist to further expand their skill-set out of comfort, out of the fear of failing to be able to adapt, only to then struggle to find a new job after having been replaced by some new technology.
• 💔 People resist going on dates in fear of being rejected only to find themselves alone when they most need someone on their side.
• 💶 People struggle with their finances, because they were too afraid to experiment with investing when they had the time and means.
• 🫀 People sacrafice their priviliged health because they didn't make the effort to experiment with different forms of nutrition, exercise etc.
• 😪 People are afraid of speaking their mind in fear of being criticised only to find themselves not being invited to the conversation anymore.

The known may feel safe and probably actually is safer in the short-term. But there are countless examples that support the idea that long-term, the consequences of staying the same is exactly the opposite of safe! There is a price to be paid for resisting innovation, there is a price to be paid for comfort, there is a price to be paid for giving in to the fear of stepping into the dark.

Remedy

Abstractly, all this may sound like good material for philosophical forums, but what does this actually mean practically in real-life?

As the previous examples show, if we want to avoid the long-term risks of resisting change, we have to be brave enough to try out new things and experiment in the present moment.

The good thing: When done repeatedly, those explorations into the unknown do not have to be all that radical. By regularly taking small steps towards new things, confronting ourselves voluntarily with things we don't yet know or understand, we can preventatively protect ourselves from the long-term dangers of staying the same without having to jump straight into the deep-end. This way, the darkness of the unknown feels less overwhelming and we can build the confidence to make bravery the default and to take a leap of faith when it is required.

Conclusion

As living beings, we have a natural desire for safety - and not without reason. When we notice an inner resistance towards doing something new, something uncertain, our body only wants to protect us from potential harm.

In our modern world though, where this potential harm mostly remains quite far away from anything actually life-threatening, this tendency to resist change can bring about serious consequences long-term, both economically as well as emotionally. This is what the safety fallacy fundamentally states.

In order to ensure both short-term and long-term safety, what we need to do is to repeatedly confront ourselves with the unknown so we can learn and develop to be able to withstand the test of time.

Not only do we protect ourselves from being left behind this way, we also open new doors to explore and experience life in new ways, get to know interesting people and develop or find new passions.