Hello from very different scenery today.
Despite the beautiful scenery, I want to talk about the Crans-Montana tragedy.
As you probably remember, there was this terrible fire during a New Year’s celebration where lots of people died and lots of people were very badly burned. There are lots of pieces of advice for burn survivors about how to manage life. But there’s one specific point I’d like to make here.
Quite a few years ago, I visited the central burn unit in the Netherlands. During our discussions they told me about a comparison they did after two very different fires. One fire took place in a small village in Holland and one in Belgium. Lots of people were injured in both fires. When they visited them about eight years after the injury, the people from the small village in Holland were prospering in general. And the people that had similar injuries in Belgium were not doing so well.
The question, of course, is why. It was because the fire in the Netherlands took place in a small village. Everybody knew everybody before and everybody expected everybody to come out of hospital and integrate back into the community. Imagine a small community, lots of people get injured, everybody knows everybody, people pay visits to the burn victims, and after the initial hospitalization period is over, you expect people to come and participate in life. On the other hand, the accident in Belgium was in a train station. People lived in their own place, people went to hospital, were discharged, went back home, and had a hard time integrating back into life. When they told me this story, it very much resonated with my own experience. I remembered my trajectory: life was going quite well, I sustained my injury, I had a terrible time, life in hospital was very bad, I slowly got better, and then at some point I went home.
And when I got home, I became used to being at home. And returning to the outside world was worse at first. Why? Because I felt people staring at me, not knowing how to react, etc. I could manage things at home that were difficult in the outside world. I had all kinds of devices and adjustments at home. Even things like public toilets, restaurants, and buses were painful and difficult to use.
Later, things improve as you integrate back into life and among friends. But there’s no denying that the initial period is tough. When a community expects people to return to the fold it’s much easier. When society makes people feel rejected, it’s much tougher.
So, my personal reflection as well as this comparison between the accident in the Netherlands and in Belgium basically says that injury is tough, the initial period in hospital is tough and returning home helps people feel that are getting better. But it’s unbelievably important not to stay at home. Even though stepping out of the comfort of home will initially be difficult and painful, it’s a necessary step to take. We must build more energy, experience real life, and recognize that despite the initial difficulty the long-term payoffs are worth it.
So that is my one piece of advice for people who have survived this tragedy. I think it’s applicable for many things—we get used to a certain level of comfort and deviating from our comfort zone is difficult that we don’t deviate, even though we could benefit in the long-term from doing so.
Wishing that all of us find the energy to step out of our comfort zone for the things that are good for us in the long-term.
