The Value of Bad News

Bad News Is Bad

and

It Is a Fact of Life

Last week, I wrote about Nora and the painful truth she had to face about her husband's financial habits. Her story did not end there. The next week, she received bad news about her health. An EKG at her yearly physical revealed that an irregularity discovered the previous year had gotten worse. On top of that, results of another test suggested she might need surgery.

For Nora, this was a terrible blow. Her sense of power and safety was centered on her physical health. She called herself “militantly healthy.” What she meant by that was that her body had to prove to her she was sick. She had been extremely healthy her entire life and there were few illness she had not been able to fight her way through. The previous year, she had been able to deny the problem indicated by the EKG because it was “not that bad”. Now, there was no denying the situation because in one year, it had gotten worse.

Bad News Is Bad

Let me be clear: bad news is bad. When you receive bad news there is nothing good or valuable in it at the moment, or for a while after that. It disrupts your life – some