What if I jumped?

My friends had a baby a few years ago and I was lucky enough to be their first visitor at the hospital. New mom handed me the little bunny without question and I sat down to snuggle the hours-old baby.

I have friends who are afraid of newborns because their heads are wobbly and what if they dropped them? I totally get it, and truthfully, I'm afraid too. What if their head DOES just fall off their neck? I mean, it's like a bowling ball being held up by a pipe cleaner...

But newborns, all swaddled like a burrito, pose a different and bigger problem for my brain.


I was holding little Leah, the first born of my good friends, and I said, "Something about holding a baby makes me worry about a spontaneous seizure. I mean, what if I just lose control and the baby is flung from my arms?" For some reason the new dad took his daughter away from me. "I've never HAD a seizure or purposefully or accidentally thrown a baby. I just mean... what if, right?" (When I came to visit them a few weeks later, they still let me hold the baby...)

I was listening to the Nerdist podcast on the way home from work tonight and Chris Hardwick was talking about his fear of driving the PCH because what if he just didn't turn a corner and he drove over a cliff to his death? I think about stuff like that all the time.

I could just not put on the brakes and drive right through that Smartcar. How smart would that be?

I could not turn and drive into that wall. What if I just drove into that wall?* 

What is it about the human mind that considers these things? Why when we stand on the edge of a cliff or balcony do we consider the ease of jumping? This can't be evolutionarily useful, can it?

Humans, despite our will to survive, are rather impulsive. Especially in our younger years. The "what if" becomes "just this once" and then suddenly someone is addicted to crack (at least that's what the TV told me).

If you're hoping I've come up with an answer, I haven't. This isn't a post where I have a witty wrap up. There are times when knowing that other people think like I do is comforting and other times, like now, when I just wonder how humanity has survived as long as it has. We're not okay. As a species, we have not been set up for success in the brain department.
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*I'm not suicidal. Luckily, at my most depressed, I'm simply boring as fuck and not in any way a self-harmer so don't consider this a cry for help.

** Seriously, let me hold your baby. I will hold your baby so good!