“We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear,” said W. H. Auden.  Life is a risky business and being human we have to deal with the competing needs for safety and risk, “risk” often being necessary when change is called for.  My clinical practice often addressed clients who were “making themselves a life safer than they could bear” or the other extreme, risk-taking run amok.  Those who were facing the challenges of too much “safety” usually involved cognitive behavioral therapy, my clinical task being to bring attention to maladaptive thinking patterns that had left them entrapped.  A common situation on that note was what clinicians call, “The Tyranny of the Shoulds” which left the individual wrapped up in a maze of, “You should do this” or “you should do that” or “you should not do this or that.”  The clinical quip was to tell the client, “Stop ‘shoulding” on yourself.”

The following cartoon beautifully illustrates the danger of hyper-concern for safety: