I shake my fist in anger at the Ouiji board!
I should have known that sudden irrational exuberance would need some sort of counter-balance. Not bad news, per se. Frustrating, though.
I had an interesting discussion with someone about patience. She explained that she wasn't very patient, as a rule. I explained that I tried to be, and that sometimes caused me frustration in dealing with people like her. She had a wonderful "Aha!" moment where she verbally progressed to the realization that frustration doesn't just come from being impatient. It can also come from being patient and dealing with someone who isn't. I was honored to be there while someone actually moved through a chain of logical reasoning and learned something about themselves. Even though it happens to me, it's fascinating to watch from the outside.
I'm a big believer in patience. Without thinking about it, there are some situations where I'm impatient, and as a long term self-improvement goal I've been trying to reduce the number.
One of the hardest things to deal with is smart people who don't feel well. Because they're intelligent, they have a tendency to see through encouraging words and comforting gestures to the bare truth: they're not feeling well. It's fantastically hard to convice some smart people of anything they don't want to believe. In that case, the route I usually have to take is to appeal to their emotions to make them understand.
Let me choose an example that's definitely not related to this issue: appearance. It can be extremely difficult to get people to admit they're attractive. We, in our culture, are hard-wired into humility from a very young age. Combine this with a negative self-image and we find that compliments have a lot of inertia to overcome. (I'm pretty sure I've messed up my Physics forces somewhere.)
If someone is smart, then you've got an even bigger uphill battle for one reason: they've probably done research. They've most likely got several reasons on hand for why it simply can't be true; they simply can't be attractive. As you may or may not know, it's pretty frustrating dealing with someone like this. It turns what should be an easy compliment into a qualifying exam for Defense on the Debate Team.
That's my dilemma: how do you convince someone you care about that their ideas are wrong? Through damned hard work and patience, I hope.
Post Script: For those of thinking this entry is about something else (i.e. Doctor Andy is in wuv), you're wrong. Every sentence in this entry is devoid of irony or duplicitous meaning (i.e. it's not about being attracted to anyone). If you were under this erroneous impression, please adjust your brain.
I had an interesting discussion with someone about patience. She explained that she wasn't very patient, as a rule. I explained that I tried to be, and that sometimes caused me frustration in dealing with people like her. She had a wonderful "Aha!" moment where she verbally progressed to the realization that frustration doesn't just come from being impatient. It can also come from being patient and dealing with someone who isn't. I was honored to be there while someone actually moved through a chain of logical reasoning and learned something about themselves. Even though it happens to me, it's fascinating to watch from the outside.
I'm a big believer in patience. Without thinking about it, there are some situations where I'm impatient, and as a long term self-improvement goal I've been trying to reduce the number.
One of the hardest things to deal with is smart people who don't feel well. Because they're intelligent, they have a tendency to see through encouraging words and comforting gestures to the bare truth: they're not feeling well. It's fantastically hard to convice some smart people of anything they don't want to believe. In that case, the route I usually have to take is to appeal to their emotions to make them understand.
Let me choose an example that's definitely not related to this issue: appearance. It can be extremely difficult to get people to admit they're attractive. We, in our culture, are hard-wired into humility from a very young age. Combine this with a negative self-image and we find that compliments have a lot of inertia to overcome. (I'm pretty sure I've messed up my Physics forces somewhere.)
If someone is smart, then you've got an even bigger uphill battle for one reason: they've probably done research. They've most likely got several reasons on hand for why it simply can't be true; they simply can't be attractive. As you may or may not know, it's pretty frustrating dealing with someone like this. It turns what should be an easy compliment into a qualifying exam for Defense on the Debate Team.
That's my dilemma: how do you convince someone you care about that their ideas are wrong? Through damned hard work and patience, I hope.
Post Script: For those of thinking this entry is about something else (i.e. Doctor Andy is in wuv), you're wrong. Every sentence in this entry is devoid of irony or duplicitous meaning (i.e. it's not about being attracted to anyone). If you were under this erroneous impression, please adjust your brain.
Thank you,
The Management
You're in love?! Congrats!
ReplyDeleteHaha, sorry, I just *had* to do that. Self perception is indeed an extremely difficult thing to overcome because it is reality to the person with the distorted image (be it appearance, intellegence, etc...). It's all subjective if you think about it because there will ALWAYS be someone more (smarter, funnier, prettier, thinner, fatter, uglier, patient, etc.) than you no matter what.