Situational Awareness
A reflection by Gabriel Del Valle
5/2/20235 min read
In my previous Finding Calm in Chaos post, I talked about how chaos is always around, and we would do well to learn to be comfortable with it. At the same time, on occasion, it helps to focus on some things while pushing other things to the background to keep your sanity and manage potentially overwhelming situations. And while pushing things to the background to achieve a certain level of calm can help, a total lack of awareness is not the ideal I found to strive for. Rather, what I’ve learned to rely on is situational awareness since there are times where chaos IS avoidable and should be avoided. And one way to avoid chaos is to see it coming so that you can make proactive decisions to your benefit. What can that look like? It can look like the second high school I went to (Olney East), which was one of the worst high schools in Philadelphia at the time. A major factor for that designation was violence. Every day there were fights. The only question was who, when and where. This is where situational awareness helps.
The reality was that this high school was highly segregated: there were basically blacks and Hispanics. Olney was overwhelmingly Black and the other significant population was Hispanic/Latino, though it was absolutely a minority (maybe 10% of the population). This segregation led to tension on a daily basis. If people kept to themselves then things were fine, but if there was even a minor brush up between two people – one being black and the other being Latino – then there’s a solid chance that something would escalate. So any time there was a “forced” mingling of the groups there was risk – times like lunch or free periods were particularly tense and prone to outbursts.
Beyond this point of tension between groups, there were the individuals in the groups. And this is an important point to consider because situations are typically created by individuals. Sounds simple and obvious but remembering that things happen at the individual level is important. Why? Because if there are high tensions then there’s ALWAYS that one person who breaks the tension. In the case of my school, this meant being aware of what people might be saying about a person, it meant knowing or recognizing the hothead, or the gang members; it meant being aware of someone pointing at another person across the room, looking to see if the second person is aware then taking in how they react – are they posturing, are they bringing other people together, are they walking away or getting amped? And in this way, much like in a movie, you can see and follow the arc of an impending conflict. It’s like having a map and seeing all the different roads meeting at one point: fights-ville.
An underlying, yet significant, point here is the ability to be objective and rational about things. What I mean is that a big part of situational awareness is to take things AS THEY ARE; not as they should be nor how you’d like them to be. It would have been a detriment for me to ignore the reality of the situation. In my ideal world, would people segregate themselves just because their neighbor isn’t in their “in-group” or part of their neighborhood? No, absolutely not. But that’s not the real world all the time. And choosing to ignore the real world could have had dire consequences for me because I was a Latino in a Black-dominated school where there were things like race-wars every year (yes, people would organize and have fights against one another just because the “other” was Black or Hispanic). This skill of situational awareness was something that I had to learn and develop as a survival mechanism more than anything; a survival mechanism that helped me avoid trouble all together, or get out of trouble if I was in a situation where escape was not possible.
I was “privileged” enough – if you can say that – to have many chances to see these sorts of things act out. And when you do, you see the rhythm of building conflict. You see the signs, or, at least, the signs are there to be seen if you know what to look for. And when you see these things then you can avoid them, which is the point here. When keeping the context of “staying calm in chaos” in mind, which works in tandem with situational awareness, you can see the individual parts of a situation unfolding. When you can see these parts unfolding, situations are less of a mystery. When it’s less of a mystery you don’t have to be as afraid or anxious because you have a reasonable expectation of possible outcomes. When you have reasonable expectations build, hopefully, that leads you to being calmer because things aren't as much of a surprise they may otherwise be. In this way, it's a sort of feedback loop that supports each other such that: if you see things happening almost in slow motion because you have an idea of what's coming you can stay calm, and when you stay calm you can better assess the situation and make good choices.
When thinking about how this translates beyond growing up in a dangerous area, think about how taking a true accounting of things might improve your life. How often have you been in a bad situation because you gave the benefit of the doubt to people or a situation? There’s a certain level of self-reflection needed to remove your personal views on things from the reality of the world, if even just for a moment. And, no, I don’t think one should give up their views, their morals, their hopes, their optimism, or anything that’s dear to them at all. Sometimes, though, it’s good practice to set those aside for a moment, try to make an objective evaluation of the situation and then – applying one’s beliefs, morals, etc. – make the best decision you can about how to move forward. And this balance of objectivity and personal views is something one develops over time, with much trial and error.
As for me, being aware of my general situation has been one of the most valuable skills I have. And even though I developed this skill in a very specific environment, I think there are fundamental components of success at play that translate to any context. Things like being aware of the environment you find yourself in - whether that’s a dangerous high school or a competitive corporate environment, and knowing what that may dictate in terms of how one conducts themselves. If you know these “ground rules” of an environment, then you know when people are breaking the norm, and that’s a potential marker for conflict. Or, there’s also being aware the different personality types there are out there – for example, hotheads are hotheads whether they’re ready to use their fists or their words to make you submit. There’s also that idea of being objective about a situation and attempting to see it for what it is while still being able to acknowledge how you think and feel about things. And you do that so that you can piece things together to make the best choice you can - with as much information and context as possible - with regards to a potential outcome.
To be sure, these are only a few ideas and considerations, but situational awareness is absolutely a multifaceted practice and concept that takes time to develop. But if we can keep some of these principles in mind, and see tough times as opportunities to learn some patterns of human behavior, then I think we’d all find a bit more clarity in the fog that life can sometimes throw our way. With that fog lifted, we're then able read the signs that are abundant as a way to avoid those bad situations or, on the flip side, be in the right place at the right time because you see all the signals leading to a great opportunity. Either way, being aware and practicing being aware has been a key aspect of my development and maybe it'll also serve you to be more mindful of this tool, which you probably already have!