Why facing reality can be so hard?

It happens all the time; when confronted with a crisis of any kind, many folks seem to be frozen in place, as if, for some mysterious reasons, a crisis that often is of their own making, can magically dissolve into thin air.

Needless to say that I don't subscribe at all to this approach and always prefer an hands-on, proactive response, to taking a pause, waiting for a miracle and hope for the best. The later philosophy seldom happens to bear any good fruits.

Of course, I won't mention the litany of excuses that we hear, like “it's not my fault”, “it's not that bad” or even “this isn't fair”. I'm not suggesting that jumping over a fresh crisis and attempting to control it is always the best possible response, but it most cases it still remains the best approach.

Then the next question is, why do people let things go south? My guess is that in many situations, their ego gets in the way of good judgment and they'd prefer to have the situation remain hidden from public view while it's still rotting than looking bad for fear of being associated with it.

What's your take on this?