What Danger?
Our brains weren’t made to go much faster than a run, and we don’t want to handle all the sensory information that comes from flight, plus all the other decisions.
By Lt. Grey Pickerill, MSC
omplacency often is defined as a state of perceived well-being or satisfaction without being aware of actual dangers or deficiencies. To preserve brain energy, we have shortcuts or mechanisms that take some of the brain-work out of a problem. While those mechanisms work fine for “simple” acts like hunting with spears, they do us a disservice if we don’t realize the limits they impose on our work. Fortunately, we also have areas of the brain that are made to raise our attention level for a particular task and allow us to focus on it. By being mindful of potential dangers, our brains will create new nerve connections to help ease the workload. Learning to balance the many factors that go into complacency not only is May-June 2008
good for safety; it also is good exercise for the brain. How many times have we been preached to about the dangers of complacency? Why do we need to be told constantly that letting down our guard for just a moment can be so deadly? The problem is that complacency is driven biologically, which means we constantly must juggle the mechanisms of being human while we perform our jobs. We are made to be complacent and must fight that nature. You might remember the term “homeostasis” from high school biology. It might seem like an abstract concept best left in the days of jocks and wedgies, but homeostasis (the tendency to maintain, or the maintenance of, normal internal stability in an organism) 3
