The 1000 to 1 Rule

Creation takes so much more work, so much more time, so much more effort than destruction.

To build a house takes thousands of hours. Hours and effort go into planning it, siting it, building the foundation, framing it, covering it, wiring it, plumbing it, insulating it, installing windows and appliances, furnishing it, decorating it.

Someone with a can of gasoline and a match can destroy it in an hour.

Trusting relationships are similar. To build trust is a process that takes repeated acts of caring, thoughtfulness, and goodwill. Brené Brown uses the metaphor of a jar filled with marbles. Each act of goodwill is represented by a single marble that is dropped in the jar. The full jar is a trusting relationship. It just takes one incident of bad will to topple the jar so all the marbles spill out and we lose all that trust.

Yet, the world is full of houses. The world is full of trusting relationships.

The 1000 to 1 rule recognizes that since we have a world full of houses and full of trusting relationships, this is proof that people are 1000 times more creative than they are destructive. If that were not the case, we would never be able to have created a world of houses and trusting relationships.

Nature is that way also. Think of the human body. For it to function at all requires the coordination of thousands (maybe millions) of processes. If just one of those processes breaks down, it can wreak havoc on the functioning of the whole system. Just think of what it’s like when you stub your toe, or can’t digest something, or have a misfiring atrial valve.

So much is needed to function well, in a cooperative coordinated system like our houses, our relationships and our bodies. So little is needed to cause a breakdown. The mere fact that we are alive is proof that we are 1000 times more cooperative and creative than we are destructive.