The Dilemma Of The Short Blanket: Choosing Between The Bad Or The Worst

The dilemma of the short blanket is very topical. In fact, few social and historical contexts are so given to what this premise points out to us. At some point in our life we ​​will be forced to choose between the bad and the worst. They are vital crossroads in which everything that opens before us is complex and adverse. How to act at these crossroads?

This premise starts from the following image. Let’s visualize ourselves in bed in the dead of winter. It’s cold and we only have a small blanket, a short blanket. In this situation we only have two options: cover our feet or cover our head. Whatever we choose, the result will always be the same: freeze equally.

When nothing satisfies us or fulfills our basic needs, it is common to lead to a state of frustration and even psychological anguish. We are all clear that life is not easy, it is true. We know that destiny does not always orchestrate in our favor, it is evident. However, it is necessary to take into account a series of aspects about this type of situation in which, at first glance, it seems that we are forced to choose the bad and the very bad.

We analyze it.

The dilemma of the short blanket, do you really have to choose between the bad and the worst?

Remember, the dilemma of the short blanket establishes that, when we find ourselves in the need to cover ourselves with a short blanket, we must choose between covering our head or feet. That piece of fabric, wool or bedspread can never cover us completely. We cannot, therefore, choose both at the same time. Now, let’s extrapolate this to real life, let’s apply this metaphor to our daily lives.

The truth is that in our personal scenarios, we do not always have to choose between only two options. Thus, one of the traps that this premise contains is to make us believe that we are subject to having to choose only between two paths. And if there is a detail for which this theory has acquired greater relevance lately, it is due to a very specific fact.

The short blanket dilemma is sometimes a type of social manipulation. Let’s think about it, a good part of our media forces us to have to choose, for example, between the left and the right, between economics or health, between nuclear energy or renewable industry, between being a feminist or being a macho … However, the evidence is in that there are many more options if you look for them, if you look closely.

In moments of complexity almost all the options seem bad to us

Mark Twain said that good judgment is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgment. That is, one learns to better guide oneself in life from mistakes and, of course, from the bad choices made. Thus, studies such as those carried out at Boston University indicate that nothing would be as recommendable today as training people in the art of decision-making.

The short blanket dilemma is a good starting point and a metaphor to ponder. When we go through a difficult time, it is common to think that every option before us is bad. For example, if I have lost my job, I may think that I only have two options left: consume all my unemployment benefit or accept a bad job to survive.

A good training in the art of decision-making would tell us that every complex moment has more than two exits. You don’t always have to choose between the bad and the worst; between one extreme and the other there are intermediate points, there are more options. However, sometimes we are so fixated on the problem itself and our emotions that the mind becomes clouded and unable to see other perspectives.

Make peace with the dilemma of the short blanket: choose the least bad option and accept it

The dilemma of the short blanket sometimes reflects very specific and also adverse realities. For example, many have found themselves in the difficult position of deciding what to do with that loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s : home care or admission to a residence. Leave your job to take care of you or hire someone to take care of you.

In these contexts, in those hardest moments, we are forced to take the least bad but the most appropriate option, and then make peace with it. Somehow, there is always a more suitable path that, although painful, is more successful. Once taken, it is necessary to reconcile with ourselves and validate that action.

Beyond context and situation, there are always more than two options

Irvin David Yalom, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, said that the biggest problem for people is fear when making decisions. To decide is to live, it is to chart directions, it is to open paths and, often, to dare to explore the unexplored. However, fear grips us and when fear invades our mind, it is very difficult to see more than two options.

The dilemma of the short blanket makes us believe that the problem with everything is in the blanket itself. In that it is too short. In that we must choose between covering our feet or our head. However, let’s be clear, the real problem is that we are cold and for this, there are many more ways to warm up. Beyond the context, regardless of the situation, there are always more than two options and you don’t always have to choose between the bad or the worst.