What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
It’s ok
to complain.
In fact,
it can be healthy.
Except,
complain to someone
with skills.
The skills to summarize your complaint
far more succinctly
than you could
alone.
The skills to organize your complaint
far more clearly
than you could
alone.
The skills to guide your complaint
toward a resolution
you couldn’t reach
alone.
May we neither waste our complaint
on people who lack
such skills.
Nor leave such people frustrated
for lacking
such skills.
When using
a table saw,
there is the danger
of severing
our fingers.
What’s remarkable
is that so long as we have
a clear understanding of the danger
in using the table saw
many of us find it sufficient
to work up the courage
to engage with it
despite the danger,
instead of staying stuck
in the thought
of severing our fingers
which merely gives rise
to fear.
Sometimes,
we discover in hindsight,
that we have wasted our energy
on a distraction.
When this happens,
it may be easy to blame ourselves
for not having had
foresight.
But without a clear direction,
what counts as distraction
and what does not
may only become obvious
in hindsight.
To decide with foresight
may we gain clarity of direction
first
to helps us discern
what counts as distraction
and what does not.
May we choose
to take responsibility
instead of blaming ourselves.
People often think
greed
is wanting more.
Greed
may also indicate
a lack of clarity
around what we really
want.
Because a lack of clarity
around what we really want
can often breed anxiety
around a perpetual sense
of not having enough.
After all,
how can we have enough
of what we don’t know
we want?
Perfection
is a feeling.
What is perfect
to one
is imperfect
to another.
What is perfect
one day
is not perfect
the next.
We can misunderstand perfection
if we focus solely
on clarifying the measurement
of perfection.
We can better understand perfection
by clarifying the tension
underlying the drive
for perfection.
There is a “self” we think
we should be.
There is a “self” others say
we should be.
There is a a “self” we think
we are.
There is a “self” others think
we are.
All of them blinds us
to the “self”
we actually are
or the “self”
we can be.
A vision
is supposed to be
unclear.
Gaze upon a mountain
far ahead
in the distance.
How much detail
do you see?
How much difference
will be there
between our vision of the mountain
and the mountain
when we arrive
at the top?
Our vision
becomes clearer
as we get closer.
Sometimes
we ask
“Am I doing
enough?”
Forgetting to ask
“Enough
to what?”
Without the answer
to the second question,
our sense of progress
can be
unclear.
Once
our sense of progress
becomes
clear,
the first question
may become
unnecessary.
A common inner conflict revolves around these two thoughts:
It may seem like these two thoughts cannot be thought by the same person.
Yet they are often thought by the same person at the same time.
That’s why it is an inner conflict.
Our inner conflict often takes the form of a paradox.
When laid out logically, paradoxes will not make sense.
By connecting what may seem like contradictory perspectives through empathy,
we can give birth to what we call creativity.
It is through such act of creation,
that paradoxes dissolve itself,
leaving behind a sense of clarity and understanding.
