How Catastrophe Can Unleash Your Full Potential

The impetus you need to reset and restart.

History's worst events highlight an odd thing: the human ability to grow and adapt to change.

When left with no choice but "adapt or die", our species has its best breakthroughs. From the flames of catastrophe rises the phoenix of long-term positive change. But with no flames, there can be no phoenix.

If you’re fighting a never-ending struggle in your life, burning it down to start over could be the answer you’re seeking.

Nuketown

I’ve visited 27 countries across 5 continents. Of all the cities I’ve seen along the way, Hiroshima lives deepest in my memory.

The prior weeks we’d spent in Japan had been a full culture shock, a first-hand alien experience.

After touching down in the land of the rising sun, the multilingual signage on the train from Narita airport had lured us into a false sense of security. One step out of Tokyo’s central station and I froze as a realization hit me. The Japanese street signs I saw were useless in combination with my English language map.

Reverting to British-born type, we approached a friendly policeman for help. For over a minute, he listened politely to our quandary before responding with:

“You speak Japanese?”

Upon the negative shakes of our heads he walked away, laughing heartily to himself. Toto, we were not in Kansas any more. Still, we learned to love Japan very quickly and I yearn to return one day.

Everyone in Tokyo and Osaka walks with such purpose. At rush hour, the locals charged in a synchronized stampede through the spotless subway tunnels. Stoicism and silence were abound, even in huge crowds.

Minutes after we stepped off the bullet train in Hiroshima, we approached a memorial. It honored the children lost in the 1945 bombing. Each Japanese person that approached the memorial had a familiar solemn demeanor. We saw it break down instantly.

People of all ages stopped and sobbed. They were suddenly overcome with the thought of the sudden and massive loss of life that haunts the national psyche.

If you were paying attention during Oppenheimer, then you’ll know that the bomb was meant to detonate a few hundred feet above ground. The most efficient way to inflict the maximum damage.

You’d also know that in the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, everything is vaporized. A sphere of annihilation.

The sphere's outer edge sliced through a barracks in Hiroshima that had been built with reinforced concrete, cutting its shape through the building.

In August of 1945, every other building in Hiroshima was made of wood. For miles around, they were instantly flattened.

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The telling of the story inside the museum in Hiroshima has a uniquely objective and truthful approach.

You’d think most museums would do this yet:

• The British Museum in London makes scant mention of the blood-soaked colonial origins of most of the exhibits.

• In the American History Museum in DC, you could almost blink and miss Vietnam and Iraq amongst the Revolutionary jingoism. Also, it turns out that World War II actually started in 1942 rather than the 1939 date every other country has in their school textbooks.

• Insert your own choice of ludicrous North Korean propaganda here.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum chooses to create a harrowing experience with truth.

There are half-melted school uniforms on display on tiny mannequins. The rescuers peeled these from the dead children who had gone back to school on the morning of the bomb. Schools in Hiroshima had reopened on August 6th 1945 after an extended break from bombing. Little did they know it was Oppenheimer, Truman et al creating better ‘control conditions’ for their world-altering experiment. They’d never make it to school.

There is graphic documentation of the brutal ravages of radiation on the humans who were just far enough away to survive. In one 1950s recording, a victim suffers a slow and painful death. They wish for the mercy of having been taken by the bomb instead.

Then, a most startling truth to see represented. Coverage of Japan’s prior history of military aggression and refusal to surrender. Acknowledgement of how that contributed to Nagasaki 3 days later. Detailed models showed that millions more people would have died should the US not have escalated. A terrible ground war would have continued, likely for many years.

I expect this angle in Oppenheimer. But not here. Not amongst the stark reminders of the ruinous destruction and loss of so many lives. Not at the place that I’d just seen shattering modern-day Japanese stoicism. Why?

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The museum dedicates the final room to reflection, hope, and moving forward.

The room is plastered with letters. Each year, the Mayor of Hiroshima writes to the leader of every country with nuclear weapons. He implores them to disarm. Every time a nuclear weapon test is conducted, a letter of protest is written and sent.

The reinforced barracks from earlier still stand, outside the museum. The upper half is carved into oblivion as if a terrible ice cream scoop swept through it.

It is kept as it was in 1945. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and a peace memorial. It deters the destruction that humans might again unleash on each other.

Japan is rightfully a proud country. These actions don’t represent a nation cowed in fear. Rather, a nation who has seen through terrible trials and found a more positive way forward.

To this day, Japan does not have any programs for the development of weapons of mass destruction.

They are the phoenix. They fly overhead to encourage those still sitting in the flames to escape to a better place.

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Self-Destruct

So what about your phoenix?

• Are the flames of discontent slowly licking away at your motivation and engagement?

• Have you become so accustomed to an approach or circumstance that any other option seems implausible?

• Are you afraid that significant change will be too much to handle?

For many people, all three answers are yes.

It’s easy to get used to minor discomfort, malaise, to feel a little empty inside.

But it’s hard to change your breakfast cereal, never mind changing your life.

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I’ve had a hard reset twice in my life. I didn’t consciously choose either. On reflection, I went beyond tempting fate. More like goading it. Double dog daring it.

In the throes of a global financial crisis in 2009, I traveled the world with my girlfriend for 4 months. We quit our jobs, spent all our savings and came back broke and pregnant.

In 2015, with the world spinning towards the instability of Brexit and Trump, we moved to the US with 2 kids under 5. No family and friends waiting on the other side of the pond. My wife couldn’t legally work for the first year. We assumed the cultures would be similar and it would be an easy transition. It was not.

Long story short, everything turned out fine! Much more than that, our lives are hugely better as a result. Thanks to adjustments and decisions we’d never had made without those scary situations in play.

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Sooner or later, life circumstances will make a big change for you whether you want it or not.

If you can run into the opportunity for something better you can learn that all will be OK. When you want to make subsequent leaps they will feel far less scary.

If you use all your energy on nostalgic comfort, trying to restore the past, you will never move forward.

Instead you’ll build up a store of regrets to take to the grave and wonder what might have been.

When your personal Hiroshima comes, will your phoenix fly?

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