check yourself before you wreck yourself
I think, and this applies to a lot of different areas of life, if something is personally easy for you, or something leaves you personally indifferent, you need to be extra careful about telling people to "calm down" or "stop exaggerating" about it.
I mean, don't just take a moment to think before saying it (or sending an email, or leaving a comment, or whatever). I mean like, take a day. Or a week.
You really run the risk of being like a color blind person who tells someone that an appallingly garish advertisement/outfit/whatever "isn't that bad" and "it's not hard to ignore it, I am."
Maybe you're objectively right. But there's two big caveats:
1. Maybe something's actually objectively wrong with you which is causing your underreaction (or you have a fluke talent which makes something that is objectively hard for most people objectively easy for you).
2. Even if you're right (or it's an issue that there isn't really right/wrong), you aren't coming at it from a place of compassion but from a place of dismissal. (This is the bigger problem.) The "other side" is not going to feel heard, much less understood, and people who don't feel heard or understood won't be able to hear or understand you.
I've been coming at this thought from several different directions recently. One is regarding an issue that has come up in media pieces several times, which is that doctors have a difficult time relating to patients on some issues, most prominently any issue which is or is believed to be related to self-control.
The issue, as several articles have pointed out, is that doctors are basically freaks. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily! But in order to get through medical school, residency, etc, you have to be in a very small subset of the population for things like ability to work on little sleep, and one of the areas in which you tend to be in the top 5% of the bell curve are all kinds of issues regarding self-control.
It's very hard (though not impossible) to become a doctor unless you are naturally on the extreme end of the bell curve in many areas like this. But the problem is, if you have naturally been a certain way ever since you were a child, and you end up spending your crucial adult vocational training period surrounded by people who are pretty much the same, that becomes "normal", even if just unconsciously.
I've also been thinking about it in relation to many different kerfuffles that pop up constantly. The current liturgy wars is a big catalyst, but it applies in lots of different scenarios; the subjects change but the motif is the same.
It's basically invalidating the emotions of other people, which immediately shuts everything down.
A: The Pope washed womens' feet! That's against the rules!
B: That's a stupid thing to get upset about.
How is A going to feel here? Even if you think that B is right, do you think that's going to convince A at all? Does A feel heard, much less understood? (While I'm not verbatim quoting anyone, I have seen basically this exact exchange go down many times on Facebook and elsewhere recently.)
Try this:
A: The Pope washed womens' feet! That's against the rules!
B: Wow. You sound pretty upset, like this has scandalized you.
A: It has! I feel like I don't know how to trust the Pope to act rightly in big things if he disregards rules in minor things.
B: Hmm. I personally prefer when women are part of the foot washing rite, but I think I can see how it would upset you, especially because I know you like tradition. I do think it's important to remember that the Pope is absolute interpreter of the law in these kinds of disciplinary matters.
And that conversation could (and probably would) go on from there. A might not change positions, but I would say it's certainly more likely in this scenario that it will happen. And possibly more importantly, instead of B just getting to feel superior/smart, B actually has to consider why "the other side" thinks that way. B shouldn't be surprised in fact if B ends up changing or modifying; that's the "danger" of this approach.
(I specifically picked the feet washing thing because this is not an issue that I, personally, feel strongly about one way or another. Therefore, I take my own advice here, and don't really want to try to convince people not to care about it, or to take one position or another. I will say it has been upsetting to me how many people are using the issue to attack others--on both sides.)
I mean, don't just take a moment to think before saying it (or sending an email, or leaving a comment, or whatever). I mean like, take a day. Or a week.
You really run the risk of being like a color blind person who tells someone that an appallingly garish advertisement/outfit/whatever "isn't that bad" and "it's not hard to ignore it, I am."
Maybe you're objectively right. But there's two big caveats:
1. Maybe something's actually objectively wrong with you which is causing your underreaction (or you have a fluke talent which makes something that is objectively hard for most people objectively easy for you).
2. Even if you're right (or it's an issue that there isn't really right/wrong), you aren't coming at it from a place of compassion but from a place of dismissal. (This is the bigger problem.) The "other side" is not going to feel heard, much less understood, and people who don't feel heard or understood won't be able to hear or understand you.
I've been coming at this thought from several different directions recently. One is regarding an issue that has come up in media pieces several times, which is that doctors have a difficult time relating to patients on some issues, most prominently any issue which is or is believed to be related to self-control.
The issue, as several articles have pointed out, is that doctors are basically freaks. Not that this is a bad thing necessarily! But in order to get through medical school, residency, etc, you have to be in a very small subset of the population for things like ability to work on little sleep, and one of the areas in which you tend to be in the top 5% of the bell curve are all kinds of issues regarding self-control.
It's very hard (though not impossible) to become a doctor unless you are naturally on the extreme end of the bell curve in many areas like this. But the problem is, if you have naturally been a certain way ever since you were a child, and you end up spending your crucial adult vocational training period surrounded by people who are pretty much the same, that becomes "normal", even if just unconsciously.
I've also been thinking about it in relation to many different kerfuffles that pop up constantly. The current liturgy wars is a big catalyst, but it applies in lots of different scenarios; the subjects change but the motif is the same.
It's basically invalidating the emotions of other people, which immediately shuts everything down.
A: The Pope washed womens' feet! That's against the rules!
B: That's a stupid thing to get upset about.
How is A going to feel here? Even if you think that B is right, do you think that's going to convince A at all? Does A feel heard, much less understood? (While I'm not verbatim quoting anyone, I have seen basically this exact exchange go down many times on Facebook and elsewhere recently.)
Try this:
A: The Pope washed womens' feet! That's against the rules!
B: Wow. You sound pretty upset, like this has scandalized you.
A: It has! I feel like I don't know how to trust the Pope to act rightly in big things if he disregards rules in minor things.
B: Hmm. I personally prefer when women are part of the foot washing rite, but I think I can see how it would upset you, especially because I know you like tradition. I do think it's important to remember that the Pope is absolute interpreter of the law in these kinds of disciplinary matters.
And that conversation could (and probably would) go on from there. A might not change positions, but I would say it's certainly more likely in this scenario that it will happen. And possibly more importantly, instead of B just getting to feel superior/smart, B actually has to consider why "the other side" thinks that way. B shouldn't be surprised in fact if B ends up changing or modifying; that's the "danger" of this approach.
(I specifically picked the feet washing thing because this is not an issue that I, personally, feel strongly about one way or another. Therefore, I take my own advice here, and don't really want to try to convince people not to care about it, or to take one position or another. I will say it has been upsetting to me how many people are using the issue to attack others--on both sides.)