"Not too long ago, I received a note from a woman who had just returned to work after having her second child. While she had managed life with one baby quite well, juggling two little ones and a burgeoning workload was wearing her out. After a rough patch of limited sleep, she wrote me that even though she liked her work, she'd been thinking about resigning, and accepting that "I can't have it all anymore.""
"But when things go wrong, I try to repeat this phrase: Don't draw too broad a conclusion. The human brain is wired to avoid pain, and one way to redeem a bad situation is to try to learn a lesson. That way, the brain thinks, you won't experience that pain again. But if you're not careful, you can learn the wrong lesson, or draw such a broad conclusion that you cut yourself off from a lot of good things."
People often generalize from isolated negative experiences and convert temporary hardships into permanent decisions. The brain seeks to avoid pain by extracting lessons, but that mechanism can produce overgeneralization and incorrect takeaways. Overgeneralizing can trigger disproportionate actions—resigning jobs, ending relationships, avoiding travel, or abandoning investments—that sacrifice future opportunities. Short-term difficulties, such as postpartum exhaustion or an unlucky trip, can create distorted beliefs about capacity or safety. Maintaining perspective and resisting broad conclusions preserves access to valuable experiences and prevents compounding initial pain into greater loss.
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