It’s often somewhat uncomfortable to come to terms with privilege, especially if there are ways that you’re underprivileged. So you might want to look away from something that makes you feel uncomfortable, like poverty in India, or the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, or the femicide of a young, white woman […]
Category: empathy
Limits to the Hiring Process
When reviewing candidates for a job position that got an overwhelming amount of applications, I realized how many rad people there are in the world. It makes me a bit sad that there’s only one position for so many amazing individuals, and this process has also helped me realize there […]
Cavities
Running a team or an organization is difficult. Often there will be many small problems that get ignored or pushed to the side in the pursuit of the greater goal. And while this is understandable, you don’t want to let these issues fester. Especially if they’re things that don’t often […]
Leaning Into Selfishness
It’s okay to do things for selfish reasons, especially if it also helps other people out. I donated $50 towards an organization that is raising money for suicide prevention advocacy mainly because it bought me raffle entries for rare vinyl toys that I want. It might not be the most […]
Fatigued
When we’re exhausted, it’s easy to want to give things up. And honestly, we probably should. It’s unsustainable to continue on things forever, especially if they’re sunk costs holding you back rather than things that give you joy. However, even when fatigued, there are probably things we shouldn’t be willing […]
Absolutism
While there might be exceptions, in general, the more something leans into absolutism, the more likely it’s going to be incorrect. Assumptions about broad categories of people will often be wrong, especially the larger the category is. Things that work for some people, especially if it doesn’t acknowledge entire systems […]
Intent Vs Impact
It’s easy to hide behind the consequences of your actions when the intention was not malicious. “It’s just a joke.” “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.” But that doesn’t mean that the impact of one’s actions was any less than if the intent was, in fact, malicious. If we […]
Don’t Condone, Empathize
I think something that confuses a lot of people is that they think empathizing with someone else means to condone that person’s actions or beliefs. They are not the same thing. We need more empathy to help us bridge the gap between their beliefs and ours – but just because […]
Having it Both Ways
When arguing something we’re factually correct about, we often expect the other party to admit that they’re wrong and learn from the experience. But how often are we willing to admit that we’re wrong and learn from the experience? It’s foolish to expect that if we’re right, the other party […]
Don’t Do Bad
“Don’t do bad” is basically the worst advice you can ever give anyone. It’s unhelpful because it lacks specificity in what they’d want you to focus on, is grammatically wonky, and focuses on the negative instead of the positive. Just as if I tell you not to think of an […]