Why Masks Give Me Hope

Masks suck. 

They’re hot and uncomfortable, especially for people who have to wear them for hours at a clip. To most Americans, they look threatening, weird, or both. And they make communication, verbal and non-verbal alike, difficult.

But you know what? It turns out that this extremely simple intervention is our best hope of stopping a global pandemic that has already claimed over 600,000 lives. Indeed, one recent study estimated that if everyone in America would just wear a mask indoors and when they can’t socially distance outdoors, the pandemic would be mostly over in six weeks.

So, most people (though, of course, not all) have gotten used to them.

This simple fact gives me great hope, personally and collectively, as we prepare to enter a new, uncertain phase of the pandemic. And the reason is what psychologists call “hedonic adaptation.”

“Hedonic adaptation” is simply the capacity of human beings to adapt to their new circumstances, for better or for worse. Study after study has shown that we quickly establish a new baseline – a new normal, if you like – based on our improved or worsened conditions.

Now, for most fortunate, privileged folks, hedonic adaptation is usually a bummer. We take for granted what we may once have yearned for – love, financial security, a house, a job – and find new ways to be unhappy. 

The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhah Hanh put it this way. If you have a bad toothache, you’re really happy when it goes away. But did you wake up this morning, grateful that you don’t have a toothache? 

Probably not. Which is why we have to be pro-active to be grateful: because gratitude, contentment, and lasting joy don’t come naturally. It’s one of the reasons meditation is so useful. Hedonic adaptation is evolutionarily desirable (if you’re content with what you’ve got, you’re unlikely to work for more) but emotionally lousy.

But hedonic adaptation isn’t a bummer when times are tough, like they are now. On the contrary, it’s a source of hope.

Because, just as we get used to the good, we also get used to the bad. Hedonic adaptation is how people still fall in love even if they’re in prison, or gravely ill, or worse. It’s how refugees can take enormous risks in the hope of a better life, and why their kids will play soccer in transit camps. It’s how human beings adapt to and endure challenging situations.

And that includes now, whether your challenges have been profound (loss of loved ones, financial insecurity, illness) or, like mine, simply very hard.

So, it matters that when I go to the playground with my young daughter, and I look around and see all the parents (and some kids) in masks, I’m actually kind of used to it.

When I go to the supermarket, or walk on the sidewalks of Brooklyn, and see almost everyone wearing masks, I’m used to that too. 

Because, if we can all get used to this – not just masks, of course, but the whole ‘new abnormal’ that we struggle with every day – we have a resilience and strength that maybe we didn’t know about before, and that might carry us through the challenging months ahead. Hedonic adaptation is a blessing.

Hedonic adaptation also gives me space to do some micro-meditation when I’m shvitzing under my mask in the summer heat. The mask sucks, but, oh right, it might be protecting the people around me right now, and it saves lives and stops a global pandemic, and I want to do all those things. Getting back in touch with that simple motivation, over and over, feels good. (Try it yourself!)

And look, all these other people are doing it too. Maybe there’s hope for us humans after all.

And it makes space for gratitude. I am grateful to everyone (including myself) putting themselves in discomfort in order to protect other people’s health. I am grateful that things have eased up to the point where playgrounds and supermarkets can be open at all.

And I am grateful that New Yorkers came together, listened to the scientific experts, and turned the tide – for the moment – against the coronavirus. We kicked its butt, actually. For now.

Of course, I know this isn’t true everywhere, or for all of you reading these words. Some places are learning some very difficult lessons right now, in the hardest possible way. The pandemic has shone a harsh light on America’s healthcare apartheid, and hit marginalized communities at shockingly disproportionate rates. And of course, those of us who have lost people close to us are not “used to this” and shouldn’t be.

But for those of us lucky enough to be merely unhappy, we should take hope in what we’ve been able to get used to. 

The next few months, after all, are filled with uncertainty – not to mention the division, misinformation, and rage of a contentious election season. We don’t actually know what the fall and winter will bring. Things could get worse before they get better.

But then, I didn’t think that I, you, and millions of other people would get used to wearing masks all the time either. Somehow, we did. Maybe we have more resilience in us than we think.