What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
“My employees
are not growing!”
said the founder.
“not growing?
or not meeting your expectations?”
I asked.
Let us start from a place of honesty
instead of judgment
“My boss
is annoying”
said the employee
Is she an annoying person
or is your judgement of her
giving rise
to your annoyance?
Sometimes
when we say
we got great advice,
what we really mean
is that our intuition
was validated
or that the advice resulted
in our feeling
accepted.
When others
resist
or reject
our compassionate
actions,
we may judge them
for being
insecure,
blinded by our own good intentions
without seeing how we contribute
to fueling their insecurity
I feel so stupid,
how come these people know so much more
than I do?
What if they learned those things
by making mistakes?
What do you mean?
What I’m seeing you do
is stall until you feel like you have everything figure out
The people you’re talking about
aren’t smarter than you,
they just went ahead and did things without waiting to figure everything out.
Assumptions
and expectations
can arise
from a place of hope
or judgment.
If we find ourselves
judging ourselves
for having judgments
we may also choose
or learn to choose
to clarify,
accept
and appreciate
the hope we have
Often times
we merely need
to suspend
disbelief.
And yet
we sometimes assume
we have to believe
what we cannot yet
believe,
which is much harder.
Some people
are difficult
to work with.
We say that
as if difficulty
is abnormal.
Would life be better
if life were easier?
Or is part of what makes life
better
is that it is
difficult?
When we admit
that easy
does not exist
in the absence
of difficulty,
we realize
Partnering up
because it would be difficult
to do it
alone
is different from
partnering up
because I don’t think
I can do it
alone.
This isn’t to say
one is good
and the other
is bad.
It is to say
one has to be aware
that there is humility
in the first
and lack of self-confidence
in the other.
There are
at least two ways
of giving advice.
One,
what most do,
is tell people
what they should do.
Two,
is laying out for people
a variety of options,
asking them to add more,
discussing their consequences or influences of their outcome
on the lives of those who choose each
then let them make the final decision
Suspending disbelief
open us up
to imagine
without believing.
And if we have trouble imagining
we can seek support
just as artists do
from the very material with which
we’re trying to imagine
by asking them questions
and working with them
to see what we can learn from them.