This is my first post in response to a post I’ve stumbled upon in the blogosphere. After graduating college, you might find yourself experiencing the shrinking social bubble phenomenon so it’s only natural to re-consider for yourself what it means to be friends with and express care for others. Jenny Blake at the blog Life After College poses the idea that the expression of care through the overflow of your own feeling is part of what it really means to live your life to the fullest and be fully human. That very well may be the case for her, but it is definitely a different experience for me.
I’ve been called cynical and heartless because of my characteristic ‘skepticism of feelings’ approach when it comes to my treatment of human relationship, dating or not. I don’t see this as a bad or good thing. I believe that feelings play a certain role in our lives, allowing us to glean a superficial ‘gut’ reaction that can move us quickly to action, but only through rationalizing and or dispelling that feeling can we understand the best course of action.
This means if a friend comes to me for advice, my feeling is to be very straightforward and disregard his feelings. If I really care for my friend and want to help him through a situation as quickly as possible, I have to help him take the best course of action. My first step is to lay all feeling aside so I can clearly think. For me, to care means to understand and act. Sometimes, feelings line up with rational thought and everyone is happy in the end. Other times, it’s not nearly as cut and dry.
I have to be compassionate. I realize that not everyone is like me; in fact, I can safely assume everyone else isn’t like me so if I treat everyone as I personally would like to be treated, I would come off as an insensitive prick and not have any friends, even though my motives are still for the greater good. Doing something I consider harmless could very well make someone else think I hate them. As a human being living amongst other human beings, I have to account for these pesky things called feelings in other people, flash a bit of the sensitivity that helps me keep my friends around and handle my relationships rationally but oh-so-delicately. We’re all different and might rub others the wrong way, but compassion serves as a good buffer. Even though I might be skeptical of your motives behind your display of compassion, I can’t fault the compassion itself.
So how do you personally handle your relationships? What sort of behavior frustrates you the most? How have you made peace with said behavior?
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pongzilla?
this is a good post. everyone is different but thats what makes it even more challenging (maybe even more exciting to learn something new about someone) to get to know someone enough to know what they like, what they dont like and what gets at them and not push their buttons. and definitely its important to know that everyone has different needs and cant treat everyone the same cus one might be more sensitive to one thing more than another person. there’s too much to say so im just going to stop here haha
I also really liked this post. I operated on thinking mode for years and refused to compromise, thinking that it was against personal integrity (and weak) to suggest or do things that were not logical, effective. I also happened to be very ‘bossy,’ believing that my take-charge personality and un-sleeping work ethic, as well as my logical thinking and clear analysis, were enough to make me a leader (and a ‘success’). However, I was not a real leader and was instead, perceived to trampler of people(‘s feelings).
Fortunately or unfortunately, some deeply distressful events opened me to severe depression, forcing me to catch me up with my feelings. Through this process, I learned not only to relate to myself in terms of my feelings, but also to others. In fact, more recently have I learned to embrace my feelings as an indicator of… how I really feel about a subject, which (at the risk of oversimplification) means discovering where this subject is in relation to my values. Feelings is another tool that helps me solve my problems.
When I am sought for advice, I seek to understand why a person is feeling a certain way by trying to figure out their values. I may help them decide by helping them see why they feel that way. Then I probe some more to figure what they feel/think is the best way to act in accordance with their values. (This might also require helping them figure out what their values are, all of which involves LISTENING, which is difficult to do and difficult to find competent doers.). Sometimes their values might completely disagree with mine; I tell them (if they cared) how I would do it differently and why, but I know ultimately I do not live with the consequences of their decision.
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