Life lessons from wildfires, power outages

Aldous Huxley, the British philosopher and author who wrote "Brave New World," once wrote, "Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

There are lessons to be learned from everything – including the recent wildfires and power outages.

So set aside your anger, anxiety and frustration with PG&E to consider lessons from the past few weeks of uncertainty. To be clear, these lessons aren't necessarily for those who lost their homes or who genuinely suffered during the power outages, although they still apply. This is for the rest of us, who lived with the irritation of threatened power outages and watched as our Northern California neighbors endured wildfires.

Three life lessons.

1. The waiting is the hardest part.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were right when they sang that ode in 1981.

First, think about this:  How stressful is a power outage? For those of us 40 or older, power outages were part of our childhood. Somebody would drive into a power pole and the power went out. A wind or rain storm hit and the power went out. A transformer blow up and the power went out.

We would wait a few hours, it came back on and we were fine.

Of course, we didn't have mobile phones and eight streaming services to watch, but still, compare that to the reaction to PG&E's planned outages.

An announcement would be made and there would be serious anxiety, bordering on panic. The power will go out at 7 p.m.! Wait, it's moved back to 9 p.m.! Wait, it didn't go out, but now it may go out in three days!

And we hyperventilate.

The anxiety isn't caused by the outages, it's caused by us waiting for the outages. We've become like Florida, where they are warned of hurricanes several days ahead, allowing the anxiety to build before the path changes and the state is spared. Until it's not.

Life lesson: Most things we worry about don't happen. And if they happen, worrying probably made it worse.

2. Weather happens as "events."

Remember when we used to have rainy days and windy days? Now we have"atmospheric rivers" that cause "rain events." Windy days are "wind events."

PG&E created a whole new vocabulary, describing weather systems with anticipated 40 mph winds as "wind events." By that standard, Fairfield-Suisun City has nonstop "wind events" every spring and early summer. (Marketing idea: Fairfield-Suisun City should begin to advertise itself as the "wind event capital of the West Coast" and sell tickets to see the windy days, since they're now events.)

Life lesson: Just when you think language is dumb, it gets worse.

3. Don't defer maintenance.

This is the most important lesson, because if there's  a common reaction to the PG&E outages, it's outrage over the fact that the company allowed utility lines to reach such a poor state that massive power outages are the only way to prevent equally massive wildfires.

We rail against it: "It's ridiculous! PG&E knew that it needed to maintain its lines, but didn't do anything!" we shout, while driving cars that are 2,000 miles past when the oil should be changed, eating fast food and planning to start exercising in a year or two, right after we finally make that appointment to finally see the dentist. "How stupid are they to ignore basic maintenance?" Then we return to jobs where we don't save for retirement and buy things on Amazon with money we don't have.

Life lesson: Don't be PG&E. Do the hard stuff now that will pay off later – even if the "payoff" is merely the avoidance of disaster.

Learn from Huxley: Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.