Hat Trick

I often try to offer a bright reframing for the holiday season. Here's the 2025 offering.


When people seem unkind, unsympathetic, selfish, unpleasant, inconsiderate, nasty, and/or awful, there's a very helpful reframing you can pull out of your hat, on-demand. In case of emergency, BREAK HAT:

Most days, you can walk down the street without being punched in the face.

I know what you're thinking. That's an awfully low bar. If that's a blessing we're supposed to count—a "lucky star" to thank—then we've fallen mightily. But that's wrong. Think 150 years ago. Think 1,500 years ago. Think 10,500 years ago. Not-getting-punched-in-the-face is an amazing upgrade to the human operating system.

Even in my short life, I remember when it was acceptable to punch people in the face. If someone was a wise guy, or gave offense or disrespect, or looked at you funny, we'd punch that person in the face without regret or censure. We were a punching people.

And it wasn't some particular spike of violence peaking in the early 1970s. No, this was the trailing edge of human normalcy stretching back eons. Putting an end to that is new. Shocking, even. It is very much a blessing to count and a lucky star to thank. And that rumbling you hear is your ancestors shaking their fists at you for failing to appreciate it.

But forget the explanation and focus on the upshot: you can deem people awful, and human society fallen, but it's exceedingly unlikely that you'll be punched in the face today.

Another: there are places where if you use an iPhone conspicuously, there will be a small chance it will be stolen. But they will almost certainly not shoot you to get it, even though it's worth $1,000. No one will chop your hand off to acquire the extravagant bauble you're flashing publicly. And $1,000 is real money. There was a time when a woman needed bodyguards to hit the town wearing a diamond ring worth that much. But now one can safely flash a thousand bucks in most places. And in the rest, it might be surreptitiously grabbed. But with hardly anyone getting all choppy with you.

I won't flood you with myriad missed blessings. I've already done that a couple of times, (like here). But let me add one more mitigating observation about this brutal hell in which we frame ourselves.

If you get sick and must be rushed to the hospital, a special truck will come and pick you up in a jiffy, and everyone - every single person - will pull to the side of the road to let you by. Including important people and wealthy people. Including the many toxic, selfish people you deem barely human.

None of them will punch you in the face, nor smash your head in for a great big wad of cash, and they'll even pull their car aside to let you pass should you ever find yourself in extremis.

Oh, and one more thing (Columbo-style).

Why would these heady luxuries strike you as puny? Why would you feel pathetic taking consolation from them?

Is it possible—is it at all possible—that this indicates you are very, very, very, very spoiled and entitled, and that a nice bracing Ebeneezer Scrooge reframe (or Grinch heart-swelling) might restore you to sanity?

Merry Christmas everybody!