ARKHAM – A surprising study out of Miskatonic University’s sociology department found that even being barely marginally better than the situation one is facing will qualify as “rising to the occasion”. The lead researcher of this study, Calvin Wright, had this to say.

“When you’re trying to explore the meaning of a colloquial phrase like Rise to the Occasion, it’s important to define our terms,” Calvin said. “When you’re a Survivor like me, the ‘Occasion’ is every single test, so this is an important field of research to be sure.”

Preston Fairmont, who funded the entire study, added, “The team asked themselves, what qualifies as rising? Does being only somewhat better count as rising? We were all pretty tired at that point, so we all just said, ‘Yes, it does,’ and then decided to go home.”

Calvin had much to say to his critics who argued that, from a cultural perspective, rising to the occasion implies actually being reliably successful at what you are doing. “This idolization of success and the so-called action economy of our society is a side-effect of capitalism gone wild. Sometimes, instead of Rising to the Occasion, we can just Take Heart, realize failure is okay and just rest for a little bit.”

“Maybe the Occasion is overrated,” Preston added. “Did you ever think of that? No. You only ever think of your own base stats.”

At press time, Calvin was still extolling the value he was getting out of his Lucky Rabbit Foot.