Don’t Throw Water on a Grease Fire Just So You Can “Do Something”

I have a new addition to my Rules to Live By: Don’t throw water on a grease fire just so you can “do something.” What this means is that sometimes you encounter a crisis or bad situation where your natural instinct is to act in some way to help out. But any action you can think or are capable of doing will only make things worse. In which case, it is better to do nothing.

No matter how benevolent our intentions are, doing nothing is a superior option to making things worse. 

Looking at this literally, most fires can be quenched with water. But not a grease fire. That’s because when you throw water on a grease fire, the first few bits of water to hit the fire flash-boil. Steam has approximately 1000 times the volume of water. This rapid expansion displaces the burning microdroplets of grease at a high speed, causing them to fly all over the place. Or on a macro level, it explodes, and makes the fire become much bigger.

If you encounter a grease fire, you need to use a fire extinguisher to put it out. Or baking soda. Or snuff it with something like a pot lid. But definitely don’t throw water on it.

If somehow you don’t have a fire extinguisher, baking soda, or anything to snuff out the fire with, standing there and hoping it doesn’t burn your house down seems like a terrible option. But an even worse option is making it explode, and then hoping that even bigger fire doesn’t burn your house down, possibly while you’re on fire yourself.

(But seriously, if you don’t have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, go buy one now, before you need it. They cost less than $15, and can save your home, everything you own, your life, the life of your family and pets, your neighbors’ houses, etc. In fact, while I was writing this post I went ahead and ordered one just because I couldn’t remember how old my kitchen fire extinguisher was. Also, if they come in a blister pack like the one I linked to, remove that packaging so you aren’t dealing with it during a fire.)

But this rule isn’t just about the literal. It’s a metaphor for living. 

There are some bad situations where the sad reality is that there’s just nothing we can effectively do to improve things. And if we try, it will only make them worse.

Like, if two strangers are having an argument. Or there’s a dispute between coworkers. Or someone is yelling at their kid. Or someone has beliefs and opinions you dislike. 

You don’t like what’s happening. You wish you could improve things. But any intervention you make is far more likely to exacerbate the problem.

I’m certainly not suggesting a cold detachment from the world. There are plenty of situations where you can have a positive impact, and a benevolent person should be striving to do so.

But part of benevolence is also recognizing when you just aren’t able to do anything beneficial, and when that is the case, you should refrain from causing harm.

So you should strive to cultivate the wisdom to recognize which situations are the ones where you can genuinely help, and which are the “water on a grease fire” situations where the most helpful thing you can do is nothing. Even when you see a terrible situation and every fiber of your being is screaming that you need to do something, that’s no justification for doing a something that makes it worse.