My life got a lot better after I stopped considering questions in terms of my own preferences and started considering them in terms of how they would connect me to others. I really don’t want to go out for drinks after work. But this preference is nothing compared to how much I value the friendships that come from doing it. Hiking a mountain is not in the top 100 things I want to do with my weekend. But a shared experience with a group of people is something I need deep in my soul.
Human connection is the preference that weighs many times more than all the others combined. Prioritizing my own inane sense of self rather than adopting behaviors that could enable relationships was just idiotic self-torture.
The point of the article isn’t to never do anything someone else suggests. It’s to get you out of the habit of reflexively agreeing to do other people favors out of anxiety, guilt, or a sense of obligation. If you’ve said “yes” to every request that crossed your desk, you’re probably not going to be left with much time to go out for drinks or to go climb a mountain with your friends.
What you’re describing is more of a tension between going with your immediate emotional response (feeling annoyed that you have to expend some effort) versus your values (connecting with other people; other examples might be creating something, or leaving a positive legacy). That’s actually pretty congruent with the message of this piece. People who are habitual people-pleasers tend to let their initial emotional response of guilt or anxiety win over their values. The immediate outcomes may be different (over- vs. undercommitting), but the long term outcome in both cases is feeling like you’re living a life without much meaning or purpose.
This is one of the main reasons why I prefer living in big cities. Compared to other places I've stayed, it makes it a whole lot easier to build and maintain human connections with people whose preferences and interests overlap with mine.
I also do plenty of activities I'm not really interested in for the sake of socializing. But always just adopting to whatever is most popular at a given time would be soulcrushing to me.
An interesting dichotomy between big cities vs small towns has come up and being discussed the replies to this. Interesting that it is a very North America-centric perspective.
Go to South Korea or Japan and you'll find rural villages that are more densely packed than cities of 100,000+ in USA and Canada. This density allows for shops and convenience stores to be easily accessible and walkable in every neighbourhood, which nudges towards social interaction. Rather than sprawling everywhere, neighbourhoods are built with the same density as elsewhere (with small apartments, large apartment towers, and/or multifamily housing).
On the other end, megacities like Seoul and Tokyo are really just cities of many neighbourhoods with similar density to the rural towns, with a few areas that are more densely built and populated than others (typically centered around geographical or transportation features). Most neighbourhoods in Seoul or Tokyo feel the exact same as any neighbourhoods in "second tier" cities. (In fact, many "suburbs" of Seoul are more densely packed than Seoul itself due to legacy building heights!) But the smaller towns just don't have subway access to megacity-only amenities.
I suspect that a lot of folks who enjoy North American big city living would do just as well in a smaller East Asian town (aside from cultural and language difficulties).
This is a really interesting tangent to go off on. I wonder if the reason for this is that Japan and Korea never really had a frontier the way the US did. I think the idea of a wide open wilderness, yours if you can tame it, contributes to a desire and expectation of a giant living space, all to yourself.
I don't know about Korea, but in Japan, most of society grew up around castle towns, and with the exception of post-war suburban development, those towns are still the same towns they have today, so population is distributed roughly the same way as in medieval times.
Consider that in the US you could immigrate west and the government would give you land if you set up a homestead, at least in the mid 1800's.
There's also a literature reference to I think Little House on the Prairie where the father sees another family coming into the valley and decides they need to pack up and leave.
There is a long history of US travel out west to get land and space regardless, or maybe because, of how far away from others you can get.
I have the excact opposite experience. The closer you live, the more people protect their privacy sphere around them and more often avoid real connections with people they run into, like neighbors. After we moved from living close in the city to outside the city limits, with way more space around us, we went from "hello" when meeting a neighbor to now stopping up and talking for real and taking a real interest in eachother, helping eachother out, etc.
I agree that in smaller places such interactions happen more organically. But you are still bound to who happens to live in the vicinity.
In the big city I do have less interactions with neighbors, but on the other hand, whatever my interest is and however fringe, I will find likeminded people.
I reckon it depends a lot on how far away your interests are from the norm as well as which and what part of the city you are living. The neighborhood I'm in, people do spent quite a lot of time in the corner cafes, restaurants and park and are open to make new friends, instead of just leaving the apartment to go to work.
I think it's the difference between those who look for similar people versus those who prefer complementary people.
Naturally everyone does both but in the RPG of life some rogues tend to hang out in the rogues guild in town while others want to be out in a dungeon alongside wizards and warriors.
That's funny. I grew up in a tiny town, and the gossipy busybodies just disgusted me. I literally heard a rumor about a family member before I heard the actual story from them once.
Panty-sniffing busybodies with nothing to do but mind other peoples' business are a major reason I've lived in cities since I had the option.
Again I funnily enough have the exact opposite experience.
In my experience if you live near 1000 people there are a higher risk of there being "gossipy busybodies" than if you live near 100 people or 10. In my opinion the difference is not the amount of people that talk rumors, as it is likely always around the same percentage, but that they drown out in a big city. So I guess the question is, if that is true: Do you care about the rumor or about hearing the rumor?
All it takes to ruin it is one bad neighbor. I went from party and traffic noise, people trying to threaten me to back off when I complained of noise and drugs being sold to waving to people in the neighborhood, walking our dogs together, helping out when a car is broken down, etc. It is like night and day.
This is very similar to my experience. I moved from an apartment complex in a city, where everyone was - and wanted to be - anonymous to a village, where people are way more open and genuinely interested in each other. Quality over quantity.
Stopping by for a chat, coffee or beer, joining for a walk or bicycle ride, helping out or asking for help etc is something natural here, while in the city would have to be arranged days in advance.
I don’t know about that being such an absolute. Personally, I feel pretty connected with people just being around them even if we aren’t interacting directly with one another.
It’s also fairly easy when living in a big city to know your neighborhood well enough that if you don’t want to be alone you can expect to run into one or two of a certain few people at different locations.
Like I know of I got to x,y,z coffee shop I can run into acquaintances of set X, Y, Z. If I want to grab a night cap at bar a,b,c I am run in to set A, B, C. And if I just want to be alone I can just wave and say hi.
You just succinctly described why I decided to dip out of a big city into exurbia when the pandemic started. I figured that if I'm going to be lonely, I may as well do it in nature.
Turns out that being alone in nature (as I realized in college) actually doesn't make me feel lonely. This is going to sound kinda weird, but I actually feel a sense of togetherness and belonging being near trees, dense foliage, animals. I wonder why this is? I'm sure there are millions of years of evolutionary evidence to answer my question, but it remains fascinating to me.
I've noticed this as well. Just the thought of being alone in a quiet forest with the sounds of the leaves rustling and the birds chirping, and the smell of the conifers puts me in a relaxed state of mind. I've noticed also that my mind almost reflexively anthropomorphizes the organisms around me, and I have a nebulous hypothesis as to why this is.
Consider this: those who become blind later in life often experience visual hallucinations (Charles Bonnet syndrome). It seems like there is something like a vision module in the brain which, when under-stimulated, starts producing its own content.
Maybe we have a social module as well, which, when under-stimulated by social interaction, starts hallucinating that non-human objects and organisms have human sentiments, and we feel a sense of affiliation as we might toward a human. The happy difference is that there is never a risk of negative social feedback from trees, rocks, or chipmunks, in the same way that there is a low risk of negative social feedback from very young children or kindly old ladies, toward whom I at least also tend to feel a reflexive sense of affiliation.
Thus, the feeling of togetherness we experience in nature is a result of our hallucinating social agents that never give us negative social feedback.
Moreover, exercise and the outdoors make you feel energetic and refreshed for other reasons, and when you feel good, the threshold stimulus for affiliative feeling is certainly lower.
This sounds great to me, but could you give an example of the sort of town you mean?
I am only really experienced with NYC, which due to geographic and traffic constraints, just seems difficult to dip into more than once a month.
I'm not aware of any in NA, but I have a few places staked out in Europe and Asia to potentially retire in. What I was talking about depends on efficient nationwide mass transit, which I assume is generally better in smaller countries.
If you live in or around Princeton NJ you can live in a nice college town that's about 1.5 hours from NYC by train or 50 minutes to Philadelphia by car.
I hear ya. Very well stated. I think that the reasons you just stated is why I’m having a hard time adapting after moving from the big city to the small town.
Great comment. I would add that this ties in with goal setting, which is an activity where you set the priorities for your life. If it's fitness for example you will skip the drinks and go to the gym instead. If it's money you will work on your business and so forth. You decided it's social connections, but it will be different for everyone. It's important to sit down and decide what we want out of life, imho.
>It's important to sit down and decide what we want out of life
I always get my hair up with this kind of statement. How do your goals look? Because the only goals I have are: a) not be homeless, b) not have my family die, and c) figure out how to have someone give me ten million dollars so I can stop coming to work.
People who have specific, 'work-ish' goals in their personal lives sort of weird me out. I don't know why.
Not the OP, but I tend to react this way, too. I get a mental picture of a 12 year old planning out their stepping-stone Senate campaign in exactly 23 years...
But (unless monomania happens to work for you) that's not it at all. It is just the idea that having some sort of goal helps provide some mental priors you bring to every-day decision making.
As an example, I have no issues to speak of with my body and eat pretty healthily by default. So I don't pay attention to what I eat, but I do try to not spend a ton of money on it, because I do have financial goals.
Goals don't need to be some complicated 5 Year Plan or whatever. For me, they just end up being something in the back of my mind, a North Star for small-scale decisions.
>How do your goals look? Because the only goals I have are: a) not be homeless, b) not have my family die, and c) [...]
>People who have specific, 'work-ish' goals in their personal lives sort of weird me out.
I'm genuinely confused as to what actually bothers you about "work-ish" goals.
As another example, I used to have a boring (but very high paying) business consulting job. I hated getting on an airplane every single week to write another soul-crushing MS Word report and Powerpoint presentation.
I absolutely had to get out of that type of work or I was going to go insane. Therefore, I used my free time to study web technologies and iOS/Android programming. My "goal" was to reinvent myself to do something else so I could switch to a more enjoyable job or create a startup. I'm forced to use my personal time because my day job had nothing to do with web/mobile technologies. To tie this back to the gp's comment, drinking beers after work with my colleagues at the business consulting job was not a good use of my personal time because it conflicted with how I wanted to change my life for the better.
Using your framework of "not be homeless" and living with the constraint that I don't have a rich uncle to leave me with a $10 million inheritance... what "non-workish" goal should I pursue to build a better life? Or should I just let things "just happen" to me?
EDIT to reply to: ">simple alternative: savings to take 12 months off without becoming homeless. Use the first six months to build the knowledge
Proposing an alternative training schedule doesn't address the crux of the problem I was responding to. The gp is weirded out by people having "work-ish" goals in their personal lives. Therefore, me quitting my job for a year to train my self will still be labeled as having a "work-ish" goal in my free and personal time.
Your story gives out a quick and simple alternative: "with a high paying job", I would have expected you to have enough savings to take 12 months off without becoming homeless. Use the first six months to build the knowledge it would take you years on your "free time" instead, then try applying it and earning from it.
If it fails and you need to accumulate more savings, go back to what you know you are good at for another stint before you try again.
IOW, don't just let it happen, but just try doing it instead.
(I fully understand that not everybody is in a position to do this, but you sound like you are.)
I meant that not as goals related to work things - but instead, I meant that as in specific, actionable goals in your personal life. For example - "Before October 25th I will 'x' and Before November 3rd, I will 'x' and in the end I will see 'y' return for 'z' money by December 3rd" sort of formal, timelined and official goals.
It's just weird to me to think about a strategic planning process for a home life, I guess.
Does that make sense?
I think you answered my question - your goals/sitting down and planning out your life are sort of what I do, in a way that I would argue is not super goal driven.
What has your recent experience been as these opportunities arise in the face of COVID? How does the potential for danger in even mundane social gatherings affect your decision now?
In the last 18 months I came to the same conclusion as you and started socializing more, but then COVID happened and then quarantine and while the rest of my office rushes back to doing team lunches and whatnot, I find myself hesitating. I know the value, but I recognize there's a risk.
edit: LOL someone downvoted this post. Was there something offensive in my question? Something incorrect or illogical? Did I mislead or misconstrue or say something needlessly political?
I wish there were actually opportunities in my life.
My office is still closed, I tried to have a reunion with university mates in my home country (I always meet them when I travel back to my birthplace), but 3 out of 4 of them bailed out.
I tried to reach out to other friends, but (except one or two) they are also opting out of meeting anyone for the foreseeable future.
I'd obviously try to play it safe: meet the others at a distance, wearing masks, etc.
It seems that most people who are shying away from meeting friends are those who cohabitate, which makes it even more frustrating to those of us who aren't :/
What I started doing during the 5 month lockdown in Bogotá is going for extended walks every day and convinced friends/coworkers and some dates to join. Less risk than meeting indoors and free so it is easier for those who lost their job or have reduced salary to do something.
That said, many people I would meet on a regular basis before, I haven't seen in person since it started. E.g. because they moved out of the citg for the time being or are taking care of their parents and don't want to take risk. With those we started having semi regular group videocalls just chatting to a glass of wine or beer. Not ideal but it did had the upside to connect more to people living elsewhere I interacted less with before the Pandemic.
I had a similar situation, but the reunion-esque meetup functioned adequately over slack instead. It's definitely not the same, but we figured everyone sitting 1.5 meters apart at a bar isn't the same either and also not very conducive to socializing.
I've been getting together with friends and family more the last couple/few months. Outdoors and indoors. A couple/few larger gatherings. There have been no problems.
Most of us our in our 40s and 50s - some older, some younger. We don't sneeze or cough on each other. It is assumed that someone feeling sick would stay home. Our family is more careful around gram, she's 92.
I'm personally not of the belief that covid is the end of the world. A lot of people agree with me.
I know of one person that refuses to leave the house. I understand that this person is more afraid of the virus than most people. I wouldn't want to do unnecessarily do anything to make a person who feels that way uncomfortable. But I'm also not going to live in a bubble for their peace of mind.
The rest of us feel pretty strongly that respiratory pandemics are part of life and can't be stopped by lockdowns, despite all of the fear-mongering headlines and anecdotes. Let me know when covid-19 is worse per-capita than the 1968 or 1957 flu seasons.
In the United States, 100,000 people died in the 1968 flu season, and the US population was about 200 million. There have been 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, and the US population is 328 million.
I think you should consider the actual quantified risk to you and the community.
For someone living alone for example and going to work drinks with 5 people, your risk of contracting COVID is very small. Your chance of developing serious complications from COVID is also very small. Your chance of spreading COVID to others, should you isolate once you develop symptoms, is also small.
I highly recommend you research the actual numbers from WHO, CDC, papers, etc. You might find it surprising how little risk it poses to people our age.
Multiply these all together and you will probably realise that COVID is not so concerning that you should forgo all social outings for.
And yet, 200k people in the US have died already, even with fairly extreme social distancing. Acceptable risks for the individual can translate into massive human tragedy. I have no expectation that Covid would be much more of a bad flu for me, and am not particularly worried for my own health. I socially distance for others: friends, family, and even people I don't know. Society cannot run on pure self-interest alone.
I’m not sure most of the public dialogue is framed correctly. As the parent comment stated, it’s about quantifying risk. We (humans) are generally bad at thinking about risk in statistically relevant sense.
Even before that discussion can happen we need to define what is the appropriate level of non-zero acceptable risk and how to measure it. Is it more appropriate to measure in utilitarian or absolute terms?(E.g., is the risk of death to an elderly nursing home patient equivalent to the risk of death to an otherwise healthy teenager? I.e. are ‘life-years lost’ more important than lives lost?) I don’t know the answers, but only once we understand that risk can we accurately mitigate it.
Bypassing all that is just layering assumptions upon assumptions
Worse, many of those infected in that particular group have rather alarming levels of myocarditis. Their age didn't spare them.
That doesn't mean we should be all "we're doomed", but glibly dismissing the risk isn't helpful either.
And while you personally might be at a lesser risk, everybody you interact with now inherits your risk. (Pre- and asymptomatic spread is a thing, isolation is not a panacea). So at the very least, include your contacts in your risk calculation. You want to see your parents and not risk killing them? Your bar of risk you can take is lower.
You spend your time exclusively with the same 5 people, in a lower age bracket, and none of them venture outside that bubble? Sure, your risk is much lower. But few of us are in a non-family bubble of 5 people who don't see anybody else.
Looks like a good and pertinent question to me. I’m seeing one old friend for a socially distanced outdoor walk / catch-up because I’ve decided the risk is outweighed by the duty to support people who might need it, and as the top OP says life is about connection, not just satisfying wants.
> How does the potential for danger in even mundane social gatherings affect your decision now?
I assess the risk with the same way I assessed the combined cumulative risk of the last 4-5 Flu Seasons. In that it didn't affect my behavior or choices in any way whatsoever. The problem is while I'd like to socialize and get back to normal, unelected health department officials have decided to make socialization illegal.
I used to do this. But it lead to one sided relationships where I was not equal party. I liked people more then they liked me and while I would say yes for sake of relationship, the favor was rarely returned. These relationships were contingent on me being passive and having no preference.
I was liked, but did not had real friends (as I found out later).
I think somehow somewhere there're real friends for you to find. Possibly simpler to find if you do new unusual things you didn't try before? Or maybe try a different city or country (if work allows)
Nothing overly dramatic happened. Basically people dropped out of my life whenever small change happened, because while I was pleasant to be around, I was not worth any additional effort no matter how tiny.
And I realized that I am never getting my preference. When I asked for my needs or wants, I never got it and people around me disproportionally did not liked it. They liked "yes" me, but as if me suddenly wanting something of saying no crossed unspoken lines. (I am 100% sure I was not impolite or aggressive or too pushy.)
When I wanted to do things I actually wanted to do, I needed to do them alone anyway. And since I subconsciously equated "yes" with "I care for relationship" or basically duty, I was afraid to organize things and have people not come (cause not coming stung more then it should).
> What happened after that?
Basically, I make sure that I am not "yes" person by the start of relationship to not get myself framed that way. And when I have a choice, I socialize with people who accept my right to say no or who are willing to compromise without punishing me in some way.
Paulo Freire writes of the oppressed being expected to import others in order to be included.
IMO our society could stand to demand less recognition of emotional demands of distant elites and landlords.
Americans are insanely entitled social police.
I’m all about lifting quality of life for the bottom at the expense of the top, cause let’s be real: it isn’t Elon or Gates literally conjuring those ideas and doing the work.
Somehow billions have been convinced to sign over the bulk of their value generation to people they don’t know.
Here’s a rich guy give him more money forever! is the new “belief” model.
How do I avoid adopting that belief behavior? Not meaning the literal trade, but the whole “accept that the rich are legally allowed to grift on collective effort”.
Behavior is constrained artificially for consistency. Because behavior is being managed by statistics and math is artificially constrained for consistency.
I've done the opposite. I used to do a lot of stuff I didn't want to just because it was a social norm I was afraid to break. I thought I valued the friendships so much that it was worth it but it made my life a misery.
I've realized that social relationships are simply not that important to me.
I started editing the comment before I knew it had replies. The meaning should be the same since I just elaborated on it. What was your comment referring to?
I have found the middle ground of turning down an activity I don’t like and propose something else at a different time, something both of us would enjoy.
Obviously not everything can be solved by this; but it works well for the human connections I value the most.
Very well put. I feel this is hard to convey to someone, even though it's plainly obvious when they are deep in it. You have to have those moments of really wondering what is important to get there.
So to put them together: people who say no too much are self-tortured, and people who say yes too much are tortured by others.
Learning to say yes sounds great, but you're on the path to becoming a people pleaser. And people pleasers who listen to NPR and learn to say no are now on the path to... prioritizing themselves over relationships and self-torture.
This can't be right. How do we not torture ourselves?
My mom was Jehovah’s Witness, so I was raised always to take care of “the appearances”, always being polite, even when you disagree.
When I moved to the US back in 2000, I “discovered” people have freedom to think and say whatever they want (kind of) and it was OK to dissent.
The pendulum went the other way, and I became a big fan of Bill Maher and the “it’s OK to be politically incorrect” openly atheist crowd. But being in tech, and the corporate world, it’s not that easy…
The biggest irony of all, is that now I live in what people consider to be “the country of freedom”, and yet, I’ve resorted back to my old ways, always using the “proper way to talk”, not to offend anyone, and always play the kind game. If you want to get anywhere in corporate America, you don’t have a choice anymore. You have to pretend, even if you agree 90%, you’re not pure enough.
In reality, I love dissent, and hearing different ideas, and arguing, convince and being convinced, and not having to care about “banned” words or sensitivities. Lay it all on the table and come back to the drawing board. Where can any of us still get that?
> what people consider to be “the country of freedom”
Yeah, no. It's a country where it is the norm to be fired on the spot and without recourse for something that has nothing to do with your job. Where cops can size any amount of money you have in your car for no reason. It's the motherland of profits and ads over privacy! US tries to sell itself as “the country of freedom” but I believe the world has come well aware this is BS and you may be much more free in the EU.
> it is the norm to be fired on the spot and without recourse for something that has nothing to do with your job
You're going to have to prove that it's the norm because it's never happened to me, or anyone I have ever interacted with. In a country of 350 million people you can pull out half a dozen examples of anything. But please point me to a single peer-reviewed study that shows it's normal or expected to be fired in the manner you describe. You can't.
I don't think the parent means it is the norm for this to happen to most people, but rather that at-will employment[0] is the norm and this is a possibility, however remote, that most people have to reckon with.
There is quite a bit of difference between "it is the norm to be fired on the spot and without recourse for something that has nothing to do with your job" (a direct quote, I don't believe missing any context but open to counterarguments) and "a legal framework exists in which a thing could conceivably happen, even though it doesn't happen in any statistically significant numbers"
I’m a fairly blunt, “pithy” chap. This has not always won me friends, but this bluntness comes with a couple of important caveats:
1) I always treat people with respect. This is different from deference. I’ve spent a significant part of my life dealing with people that are sometimes emotionally challenged, coupled with a propensity for dealing with problems violently. Many of these folks react very badly to “snootiness.” They’d rather hear “screw you,” than some of the passive-aggressive put-downs you learn at Ivy-League colleges.
2) I’ve learned to never lie in business. Even in the interest of security, I’ve found that it’s possible to avoid lying, by saying things like “I am not authorized to talk about that,” or “That’s not my story to tell” (i.e. “no”).
I take personal responsibility for my screwups, or my team’s, if I am the manager, and give, sincere, contrite (but not servile), apologies, keeping them focused on just the things for which I am responsible. I don’t allow others to “add on” to my apologies. Which I can sometimes do fairly directly.
I never shirk responsibility, and I always make it clear that I am accountable, in direct, unambiguous language.
This earned me a reputation of extreme trustworthiness. If I said I did something, then I did it. If I said I didn’t do something, then I didn’t do it.
If I said “no,” it was accepted without a fight, and I didn’t need to be a jerk about it. People respected me, and they knew I respected them. They also knew they couldn’t push me around, so they didn’t try.
In some cases, I wasn’t empowered to say no (like to a boss). In those cases, I often just had to bite my tongue, and do what I was ordered. If at all possible (not always an option), I would try to provide feedback on why I considered the order less-than-optimal, but I would do it, anyway.
Comes up all the time between me and my boss with whom I share a mutual respect and, similar to parent, sometimes he was right and sometimes I was right. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter because as a manager the outcomes were his responsibility, therefore he gets the final say.
Both good and bad. In some cases, the boss was right, and I was wrong (always a good idea to tell the boss they were right). In other cases, I was right, and the boss was wrong (seldom a good idea to tell the boss they were wrong).
Human relationships, as another commenter pointed out, are the real meat in life, and tend to present the biggest challenges. My self-discipline and self-awareness have almost nothing to do with my career, but are the result of a lifetime of personal self-development. Long, boring story.
I was raised in a Mormon family, which I now understand to be a very similar experience to that of Jehovah's Witnesses.
I went on (what was supposed to be) a two year mission for the LDS church, but grew up telling myself it was out of desire and not obligation. It was definitely about obligation, just like so many other aspects of my life at that time.
I told myself I was going to college to better myself, but that was out of obligation, too.
Similar to Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism has created a culture that is explicitly against dissent. Leaders preach from the pulpit often that we should dismiss people whose conclusions are contrary to The Church's narrative or truth claims.
Having recently left my belief in Mormonism, I've been taking a lot of time to reevaluate my goals and life decisions. Years of compromising with conservative Mormonism have left me with a strong appetite for open dissent and honest argument.
Similar background, and I completely agree. I left the faith ~8 years ago and went through an identity crisis. I didn't know what I wanted because I always said 'yes'. All of the decisions in my life to that point were mine, sure, but they were essentially made for me...and I was simply to say 'yes'.
Society itself is a culture against dissent. We choose to live together despite our differences and make sacrifices for the group over the individual. It's part of the social contract.
> In reality, I love dissent, and hearing different ideas, and arguing, convince and being convinced
Sounds great.
> and not having to care about “banned” words or sensitivities
Whoa, where did this come from? How is this related to the previous statement at all?
If you're the type of person who doesn't care about how your words can make others feel, then yeah I'm sure you're stuck with a feeling that you can't argue openly. Have you considered that by changing your tone so that it doesn't come across as personal attacks you would be able to have more open arguments?
Maybe you've worked in companies where they actually have gone overboard, but in my experience most who complain about sensitivities are the type that want to call their colleagues' ideas "retarded" and such.
And it shouldn't. If no is saying fuck you, then that's a far greater problem than being too nice. As if no is politically incorrect. This would have been a far better story actually than the NPR people pleaser pleaser feel good piece.
In Japan there is honne and tatemae. So the corporate (and formal casual) bullshit is formalized. There's a script everyone follows to keep the peace. Then they all go out for a drink, and the cufflinks come off. The best scenario being, you get to say fuck you with the pretense of alcohol even if you're not drunk. And the wives know everything.
So ironically, many Japanese admire the US where there is less of this bullshit. Except, that's only the appearance. Freedom is the tatemae.
So the Japanese system actually works. In a system where you cannot avoid bullshit, scripted bullshit works wonders.
So you need to question the system and those that support it. As it turns out, those that succeed with the system support it, and they're the wealthy.
Fortunately, it is possible (even if our politicians can't do it) to completely disagree with someone and NOT be an asshole.
You can argue AND still be respectful and polite to the person you are arguing with. You can vehemently disagree and still do so in a way that respects the other person's different perspective and point of view.
And choosing not to use language that is commonly considered offensive is not a limit on your freedom. But others have the freedom to choose not to engage with you (or continue to employ you).
I feel you here, there is too much sugar coating of everything, it's spread to the UK too. We are pleased to serve you at another checkout. We will be pleased to help you on another occasion. The weird thing is some people genuinely seem not to realize that the content of these messages is simply 'no' and actually respond differently to them. Conversely I get more wound up when people try to dress up no as yes.
As to a literal f-you however, there are of course ways to say no without resorting to verbal abuse :)
You're missing the fact the information content of the quotes you give is fundamentally different from messages that say "not here" or "not now" in that they immediately suggests an alternative course of action. This is helpful instead of contrarian.
> The pendulum went the other way ... I’ve resorted back to my old ways,
Sounds like you need to find somewhere in the middle. You're allowed to disagree and debate. The polite smiling attitude and F-You attitude both are conflict avoidance.
I come from a very conservative family, at least among my father's family there have been also religious fanatics. That was hardly part of my life luckily, on the other hand open dissent (from younger ones) was hardly ever accepted. It was either met with ridicule, anger or shock. Actually both my mother and my sister also have been influenced a lot with their job choice. For me it has been quite a struggle to choose the studies and job I want to do involving stopping contact with my father almost completely without being faced constant criticism, persuasion and ridicule. Also showing showing happiness is expected.
For me it's completely counter-intuitive what is acceptable and what not in terms of disagreement or even which opinions are okay to voice. I had to "manually" learn this.
Same. My problem isn't finding the will or the ability to say no, it's figuring out when it's acceptable to say no. I've said no too many times and had absolutely each and every person (including people whose opinions I valued) who's analyzed the interaction come back with, "wow, you were being a real jerk saying no in that instance." I've come very close to losing jobs for saying no to the wrong person at the wrong time - if I didn't have an in-demand skillset that was hard to replace, I would almost definitely have found myself unemployed sporadically over the years. I've finally come around to accept that I'm far enough into the autism spectrum not to be able to figure out when I'm in the right, so I usually say yes because it's the least dangerous option.
"Progressivism is domestic imperialism. It is about the conquest of one culture by another, and needs demonstrations of submission to know when the job is done." ~ Michael Malice
What's wrong with being kind and speaking to people with respect while you disagree with them?
One of the big problems with the "politically incorrect" or "radical free speech" crowd is that your words can hurt people's feeling. And your tone can hurt people's feelings. And there's no good reason to tell someone "fuck off" when you can politely say no other than maybe you have things you're angry about that you haven't dealt with well. And those things you're angry about are lingering around your subsconscious giving you a latent urge to tell someone to "fuck off." But other people shouldn't suffer because you haven't figured out how to deal with your anger issue.
Can you explain to me the personal attack because I’m not seeing it. And I’ve been a commenting member of this community for about a decade so I believe I have something of an understanding of HN.
Your comment took the form of making judgments about someone's personal issues ("you haven't figured out how to deal with your anger issue") and psychologically commenting about them. That's much, much too personally provocative. The odds of it landing well with a person you're talking to on the internet round to zero. It's also incongruent with a defense of "being kind and speaking to people with respect".
To be fair, it's not clear whether you meant the word "you" to be Natales or anyone-in-general. But that nuance is probably going to get lost on people reading the comment, especially the particular person you're talking to. Also, your other comments downthread made it clearer that you were indeed talking about Natales personally, and also that you were inclined to attack other users (e.g. "would that make you feel better", "You clearly have a narrow view").
I know you've been a member of HN for a long time. You're a great HN user!
I definitely was speaking about “the group of people who believe free speech is under attack” and “the group of people who feel like they shouldn’t have to be polite to others” but I understand how that can be misinterpreted.
For context, I'm from Spain (our society is somewhat confrontational, in the sense that people like to argue about petty things and banter, it's almost a way of making small talk here) and I've got a lot of American friends here, who in contrast tend to take the "politically correct/business nice" approach in their circles, even with friends.
There are ups and downs to each approach, and I don't think one is superior to the other, but in my personal experience my american friends tend to be a little insecure about their relationships and not bond as much, because they can never be fully sure of whether they're welcome or just tolerated - if everything's a smile, it's harder to tell a genuine gesture from an act of politeness.
I have a pet theory that introverted/asocial people tend to like the blunt approach and the politically incorrect crowd better because it's easier to tell where you stand, which might be great if you're not good at reading people and navigating social customs. Extroverted, more social people have a more developed sense to understand those subtleties and never feel as lost/insecure, so they don't see the upside of bluntness.
> What's wrong with being kind and speaking to people with respect while you disagree with them?
The problem is that people intentionally manipulate what "being kind" means to try to silence others. The tactic, as far as I understand it, is to present an incredible level of sensitivity about anything that happens to disagree with their worldview such that even voicing a different opinion is treated as "disrespectful" and "unkind". It's an intentionally manipulative play that exploits people's desire to get along, with the outcome of only the most sensitive person's opinions being allowed to be voiced, everything else being characterized as unacceptable, and dissenters being ostracized.
It's weaponizing social etiquette as a means to enforce political compliance, all the while crying crocodile tears and claiming that they just want people to be "kind".
> One of the big problems with the "politically incorrect" or "radical free speech" crowd is that your words can hurt people's feeling. And your tone can hurt people's feelings.
Stating objective, empirical observations about the world can also hurt people's feelings.
There have never been laws against hurting people's feelings. And no one is advocating for laws against hurting people's feelings. We're telling you, if you act like an asshole other people might not like it and that's fair. And that you can get fired for being an asshole. And that the law is merely that the government will not imprison you for being an asshole.
The obvious example is misgendering and the whole Jordan Peterson debacle comes to mind.
>We're telling you, if you act like an asshole other people might not like it and that's fair.
Trust me abrasive people understand this, some of them get off on it.
>And that you can get fired for being an asshole.
I agree if you're an asshole it is grounds for firing. I've worked with some real abusive dickheads before who should have been fired. The difficulty is in judging what is crossing the line. I've worked at places where people should have been fired (constant abusive sex jokes) and weren't because they held too much power. I've also worked at places where you could get fired for publicly having conservative opinions and where you were constantly walking on eggshells. It's a real tyrany in both cases but I don't see an obvious solution.
Jordan Peterson railed against a guideline that, from what I understand, had no consequences to him. He blew it up as if he was being persecuted but the actual law was just “hey please consider using people’s preferred pronouns”.
That isn't a good summary of the bill, and it didn't even mention preferred pronouns. What it actually did was add "gender identity or expression" to a list of protected characteristics to be considered when prosecuting hate speech and as a factor in criminal sentencing. (Peterson's interpretation was that it would have the effect of making misgendering or failure to use preferred pronouns into hate speech, thus that it was a law that amounted to compelled speech.)
Oh so it's even more silly and blown up than I thought. I'd go back to correct myself but unfortunately I can't since the post is too old. Thanks for correcting me!
Do remember though that Peterson's submissions against the bill (alongside Gad Saad if I remember right) was not really all that silly and blown up. It was the subsequent reaction where people said "this guy is a far right transphbic bigot" and blew it all out of proportion and made him famous. And then there was the whole Lindsay Shepherd/Wilkred Laurier affair.
What I am saying is you might think JP lit a stupid fire, but don't forget that a lot of people came along and poured a lot of oil it.
I find it a bit odd that people are mad at a guy for having concerns about a proposed law and raising them as part of the bill's scrutiny process. And don't forget that in the end, the lawmakers weren't persuaded by his arguments, and passed the law anyway.
Would people rather live in a world where laws are passed without scrutiny, everybody keeops quiet and nobody makes a fuss? I still think somewhere underneath all the nonsense a lot of valuable public discussions were had.
I dont think it is entirely true. I have many times seen people argue that something like offence does not exist. Or that "hurt feelings" are basically your own fault. Or that put downs or insults are all just about your own weak feelings.
Well, it is true that you are responsible for the way that you feel, and you can choose not only how to externally react to what people to say, but even teach yourself to internally process those messages as constructively as you want to.
The most powerful thing about words is the power the listener gives them.
I hope I've successfully fallen between the cracks of the perspective you outlined.
> The most powerful thing about words is the power the listener gives them.
Human beings are neurologically wired to biologically respond to communication from other beings. A classic example is nursing women who express milk when hearing a baby cry.
There are many other examples of involuntary responses to environmental stimulus, much of which include human communication. Loud noises cause involuntarily muscular response, sexual display increases heart rates, threatening behavior (including language) floods the bloodstream with cortisol.
In other words, we may (if we're lucky) modulate our actions in response to what people say to us but there is much evidence to suggest we have little to no control over the feelings that words may elicit.
I have much now control over my thoughts and feelings in response to words than I used to. Here, for example, almost ridiculously, I felt a moment of anger that someone who so clearly had missed my point would so confidently respond with examples that are not relevant to it. That lasted a microsecond. I've learned to tell myself a different story. You're not being properly obtuse, your actually have a different set of life experiences and intuitions than I do, and that leads you to interpret my words in a way that I didn't intend. There's nothing to be angry about there.
If you call me a racial slur, and I honestly don't give a shit, what power do you have over me?
> You're not being properly obtuse, your actually have a different set of life experiences and intuitions than I do, and that leads you to interpret my words in a way that I didn't intend.
Intentionally obtuse people exists. Intentionally obtuse responses exist and are not rare. Treating them as good faith does not work and just gives them more power. You change situation into innocent one and that is different topic.
> If you call me a racial slur, and I honestly don't give a shit, what power do you have over me?
If I call you racial slur, I have reason for that. It is likely that I want to let you know that your kind including you is not welcome in this team, company, street, whatever. It is first warning and if you stay, expect to deal with my hostility (direct or passive aggressive or purely behind back). It also means I am more likely to be creating narratives in my head to use against you behind your back.
So, if you call me racial slur, what power you have? Is this the first sign I would watch out for hostility and to watch my back from you? Is this sign you will be biased while evaluating my work? Biased evaluation is super hard to prove or recognize before it does damage, pretty often it just lowers targets confidence in first stages.
Are you being intentionally hostile and if I stay near you, you will escalate? Racial slur is hostility and if I don't notice first hostile signs, I am more at risk.
Are you a colleague I need to cooperate with, now knowing you take me as lesser? Will I be blamed if that cooperation fails? Or someone whose explanations and answers I need? Are you a manager? Or, are we in a bar and this means I better leave? Are you a cop and this is first warning that my rights are at risk?
All of those are threats of violence, not the violence itself. In most if not all cases, you are right. I'm making a theoretical argument to disprove a thesis, that words themselves have power to hurt outside of the power we give them. If you say something to me, and I don't fear you, then your words have no power over me.
I realize there are intentionally obtuse people out there, but I don't think you were being one of them. And I believe that the pathway to a better society is presuming positive intent until demonstrated otherwise. And even perhaps one step beyond. What looks like undeniable hatred to you may actually be benighted misunderstanding and ignorance that deserves to be corrected, lovingly and gradually if needed, over the course of a lifetime.
> Here, for example, almost ridiculously, I felt a moment of anger that someone who so clearly had missed my point would so confidently respond with examples that are not relevant to it.
I believe my examples, especially regarding blood cortisol levels with regard to threatening behavior, are very relevant.
Another example
> I felt a moment of anger
You controlled your response, but you likely had little to no control over that initial “moment of anger”, which is my point.
Yeah we all choose what we want to focus on, and I try to focus on things I can control. And I believe if everyone did, the world would be a better place.
The said words affect everyone in the room. When someone is offending you and you don't respond, it pretty often affects how other respond to you too.
> even teach yourself to internally process those messages as constructively
No, you need to teach yourself to respond to them. And for that you need to stop pretending they do no harm. And stop blaming yourself for feeling bad after someone insulted you. Really, when someone insults you, feeling hurt is normal human reaction. Not "your responsibility to constructively respond" or to teach yourself to stop feeling.
That is just being doormat and doormats gets bullied. That is how women in 1950 were taught to act while males responded to insults. Males were the ones who had respect.
I'm not saying bullying doesn't exist, or that it shouldn't be responded to appropriately. But I think people miss that there is a TON of speech that is not malicious on nature but gets treated as such. That's not bullying, and if you respond to it with defiance, you're escalating situations, not building trust with people different from you.
Why is angry response to my defiance considered warranted while my defiance as response to perceived hostility is not? My defiance is not malicious either.
It's not. But an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. You can continue to participate in that cycle, and most do.
I'm simply pointing out that there's another option, which is to get off that train. And it's actually quite simple to do.
There's a little voice in our heads that says we can't let the other person win. If you want to, you can ask it questions. Like, win at what? What's the prize? What is it worth? And not always, but sometimes, the answer is there nothing at stake and you should pick your battles.
Exactly. The true issue is what's making you think fuck you in the first place! Not how you say it. And that's the real conversation.
If fuck you is what you mean, then no amount of dressing will change the fact that you're saying it. And to then act as if you didn't say it just because you didn't use the words fuck you is lying. Being polite is being polite, but that doesn't change the message THAT much unless you actually lie and say something different. And then often the conversation becomes about attitude and respect and language, and not what was actually angering. Ultimately, that's what's stupid and disrespectful. And to then be scanning and policing each other's statements for this?
This annoys me to no end on Quora too when people just find novel ways of saying fuck you believing that's what their Be Nice Be Respectful policy means. No, it's not a license to say anything you want so long as you're polite. It's like how a racist thinks to get away with racism. If you're a racist then let's talk about it! Of course, normally they can't, so they've trained themselves to talk different. But it's not a real conversation. It's horseshit.
Challenging someone's argument and challenging someone's character are completely different. It doesn't matter how politely you do it if that's what you're doing.
And being honest takes courage! It was never truly about other people's feelings. It's "what if I" hurt them. You're about to do that anyway based on the point you're making, if it's a valid point against something they have a stake in. From there, either they're adults who recognize valid points or they're not. That's their court.
And if they weren't hurt, then you didn't say it, period. What you meant to say got lost in all the correctness.
So just to be clear, it makes it hard for him to be polite because if he complains about doing a minimal amount of work to not be rude, I say something?
He did say something, he said that it bothers him to have to shape the way he speaks to other people so that they are not offended. And what exactly is weird about that? Sounds like life to me. And that he misunderstands free speech which is about the government not being able to imprison you or legally punish you for speech.
Free speech is a philosophical concept, it happens to be enshrined in law in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America to prevent the government for imprisoning you for your speech, but it is first and foremost the philosophical concept, not the law. That concept used to be part of the social mores of the United States and much of the Western world, it isn't really any longer as your own commentary here demonstrates.
The social mores have shifted, and while you may not be imprisoned, real tangible consequences (which are arguably unfair and inappropriate) can occur for trying to have a real meaningful conversation with someone based on your own honest beliefs. You are arguing essentially that those consequences are not only acceptable, but laudable, because you see it as "just desserts". Trying to distract from the serious philosophical issue by hyperfocusing on the legal non-issue is a common tactic of people who endorse bullying and "cancel culture" tactics to suppress other's speech. Your arguments here have been subtly insulting and not in good faith, and I don't think are the way people should behave on HN, but ironically, I'm responding to you in good faith because I fully support (philosophically) your right to say those things and you are acting within the rules.
You clearly have a narrow view of the history of the United States because before the 1960's a black person could be murdered by a mob for saying the wrong thing to a white person. And those mob murderers would not be prosecuted. You call that a philosophical protection of free speech inshrined within the culture?
Also, you ever hear of anyone in America being punished for saying they're a communist or homosexual? Or is that fiction to you as well?
To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men. And now it is that same group who coincidentally seems to complain the loudest that they no longer can say exactly what they wish without consequences.
> To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men.
This is true, and unsurprising given the historical context. In fact, the Constitution was written as such with the original intention of providing those freedoms primarily to the benefit of not just white men, but land-owning white men. Crofters, smallholders, and other types of land-owners wanted to be put on the same tier of political power as others, when previously they were stifled under the aristocracy. That was the defining feature of the American Revolution and the things which followed.
But your reply to me is primarily just a form of whataboutism and fails to refute or respond to my core point. My view of history is neither narrow nor incomplete, insofar as it applies to the racial and gender injustices that existed in the US. This also has pretty much nothing to do with the philosophical basis of free speech.
It’s not whataboutism because the fact that the value of free speech was only granted to a privileged few addresses your argument that the USA once valued free speech and things have changed. If free speech was only granted to a privileged few why should we ever think of it as some societal value that was lost? It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized. We all still have free speech by the definition of the constitution but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful. And there is popular sentiment supporting that criticism.
> It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized.
Free speech is a civil right, as civil rights have grown in the US it has been extended to those that civil rights have grown to encompass. It's not just the privileged few (or even the privileged majority) that are angry about a loss of this social more.
> but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful.
What you are calling "the powerful" seems to me to mostly be average normal people who just happen to not agree with the current sentiment in vogue. Most of the people who've found themselves on the wrong end of the consequences meted out for attempting to exercise freedom of speech would hardly qualify as "powerful" under any lay definition.
The public square is supposed to belong to everyone, and freedom of speech is the social more that ensures this is the case. We've lost or are beginning to lose this social more, and doing so has disastrous long-term and far-reaching consequences for our society.
Who are these people that have been punished for speech? It seems to me more a boogeyman of “if I say X, people will not like it” which is normal, sometimes people find some ideas repugnant, than a real scare.
And yes I am using a relatively broad definition of powerful, I’m not talking Bezos etc in the 0.01%, I’m talking more upper middle class and up mostly white men. Who maybe are not correctly defined as the powerful but they are traditionally the people protected by law & USA cultural norms (which isn’t power in the traditional sense of political power or wealth but means quite a bit in one’s day-to-day life).
And one more time to say the original counter argument of mine again, if there was free speech explain to me COINTELPRO.
If I said “little childish voice in the back of your head who craves to be rude without cause” instead of “anger issue” would that make you feel better?
If you're a people-pleaser, don't ever do what this article is calling a "soft no." It's proposing this as a compromise between a "hard no" and a yes, but there's no benefit in being compromised here. The more practice you get with your "hard no," the better you'll get at it. Eventually you'll have to pull back because you're finding it too easy to say no. That's when you know you're cured.
A "soft no" given to an assertive person just means "I'm telling you what's keeping me from saying yes, if you solve it, it's a yes." You will get talked into saying "yes" every time you speak to a person with social skills, and your "soft no" will only stand with people who are shy or unassertive, regardless of the merit of the requests. It'll inevitably lead to getting used by the people who have the least consideration for other people's time, and who always push as a general policy.
Just say "no." You don't have to say it quickly; wait to hear the person's case if you need to, but at the point when you mean "no," say "no." If you honestly feel you need to be convinced, or you need solutions to obstructions that are keeping you from agreeing, just say so, but don't confuse that with a "no."
Yeah, that was the one weird bit to me. I definitely am one of these people and have only figured it out (somewhat) after 40 years. The soft No is the last thing you want to do. It's like playing cards (I hate to be so transactional about it) with yours on the table.
- "No more Mr. Nice Guy" Robert A. Glover: A great book on identification and elimination of nice guy behaviors with lots of exercises.
- "When I say no I feel guilty" Manuel J. Smith: Techniques with lots of examples on how to stay assertive and deal with attempts to manipulate you into doing something. Relevant for dealing with colleagues, spouses, shop clerks, ...
There are others but those two books will get you very far if you take this seriously.
I read "No more Mr. Nice Guy" a few years ago and it completely changed my perspective on personal relationships, made me realise my own behaviour was part of the reason for my failed relationships in the past. I highly recommend reading it if you are interested in self-improvement.
Reading "No more Mr. Nice Guy" was like someone peering into my brain and describing it. I'm cautious in taking the psychological explanations for granted, but the behaviors themselves were scarily accurate.
Watch out for saying no. People you work with learn what things you will say no to and rephrase the question to avoid a let down or start asking the wrong question and then misquoting themselves later. This becomes a cat and mouse game of trying to determine what people’s intent really is. Humans are built for deception.
I tend to respond with “let me sit down and think about this” then send them an email with their question and my answer. That gives both parties an opportunity to defend a position later or be honest about what the intent was as it’s amazing who emails get forwarded to when there’s a disagreement.
Yes it is glass half empty and intentionally so. The point is that it takes time to reason about problems, understand more than individual perspectives and evaluate solutions to problems. I have shot myself so many times in the past by having a quick answer to a question even if I was previously convinced it was a good idea.
As for letting people know what you say yes to, all problems need the same evaluation therefore which leads to assumptions that you will say yes. Sometimes people don't ask and just assume. Another road to hell.
It's not evasive either. There's nothing to say that you're not going to sit there and work through it with them, engage with other people and come up with a solution based on pooled ideas.
Perhaps I should say I never say yes or no until the adequate amount of research has been done.
Working these things out in real-time in the presence of conflict and tension is an immeasurably valuable life skill. If you don't practice it, you'll never get better.
Consider your wife's coffee maker conversation practice for times where the stakes are much higher.
Her representation of the problem: we need to buy a new coffee machine.
Really what’s going on: coffee machine needs cleaning properly but it doesn’t match the rest of the stuff in the kitchen now.
Edit: I'm sure this analogy probably works better for the folk downvoting when you look at it in terms of computation. Perhaps I should have write "the developer wants to rewrite this function as a microservice" whereas the real problem is "we need to fix this defect".
The real thing is the developer wants to write a new shiny microservice full of new bugs rather than actually fix the damn bugs. Same as my wife wants a new shiny coffee machine but doesn't want to clean the old one (which is a shitty job, which I did in the end anyway because I made the faulty decision of saying yes to myself too quickly. I also fixed the bug)
There are 2 problems: The coffee machine doesn't work, AND it doesn't match the kitchen. Possibly 3, the machine is high maintenance. In your comment, you neglected 2 of those problems.
Yes, there's a bug in the production services, but maybe it's a nightmare to maintain and there are more and more bugs creeping in and a microservice might help make it more stable - and maybe the developers want more experience with new tech to grow professionally as well.
It seems like communication is missing in both cases. It is easy to try to guess the other’s person motivations, but it’s actually hard to be 100% correct, and even if we’re 100% correct, who says our motivation is more valid than the other’s person? sure sometimes our motivation is objectively better, but the other person won’t agree without communication.
Probably after reading “No More Mr Nice Guy” everyone should read “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
The real issue is that your wife is in control of the kitchen, if she wants to buy a new machine that looks nicer, she is the boss and you shouldn't be arguing. :)
The whole make yourself happy first mentality is a bizarre side effect of therapy.
Therapists have one client. Not the client’s family, friends, coworkers, and community. Because of that much of the advice therapist give benefits the client at the expense of everyone else. This creates a toxic environment when you have a large percentage of any group going to therapy and practicing me first techniques.
I wonder if there is a way to align therapist goals with the greater good as opposed to the single client. Much how we have made changes to help doctors care for the long term physical health of a patient over a short term fix.
For a lot of people seeking therapy, their issues do start with a personal sense of lacking. Starting with helping them to love themselves first makes sense.
If someone goes to a therapist with narcissistic tendencies or anger issues, I would expect less of the "me first" approach.
I’d actually go so far as to say that I’m not familiar with any legitimate therapeutic approach that is not concerned with how the patient treats others. I’ve definitely read self-help books that seemed to be advocating for narcissistic behavior, but they weren’t written by mainstream psychologists or therapists.
In the best/ideal case, that's one of the jobs of a pastor/rabbi/imam. Their purpose, to now use Christian language, is to care for their flock. This does mean being concerned with the spiritual needs of the individual. But it also means being concerned with the larger community.
You can imagine those goals being in conflict. The norms that help communities to grow and find new life are not necessarily the norms that help individuals find fulfilment. For example, heteronormativity helps the biological reproduction of the community, and generally is good for the happiness of the majority, but it sucks for LGBTQ people. It's natural, therefore, for there to be a backlash against it. But it seems to me that the solution is really to recognize the roles that people of all sexual preferences can play in ensuring the community's biological, ecological, and cultural future. In this way, norms related to fertility can be reconciled with those about truth-to-self, in a way that is actually functional.
(Note that if 20% of the community has a non-reproductive role to play, and a birth rate of 2.1 is required to maintain the community, then a birth rate of 2.6 is required among the 80% of heterosexuals, which is perfectly reasonable. As some percentage of those will probably remain single -- 20%? -- then really only about 64% of women can be expected to have children, in which case the expected value needs to be about 3.3 -- still fine. An alternative is to make up for low reproductive rates by proselytizing, but I think a permanent culture needs to exist at an equilibrium. If gene/meme incentives are not aligned, everyone will need to wage a constant war against their own selves (various kinds of "pray the gay away" and other mutilations), which is exactly what we are trying to avoid.)
All this is meant simply as an example of how, although shifting from therapist-of-the-individual to shepherd-of-the-community could be anticipated to advance different (and possibly problematic) norms, it is probably possible to resolve those norm-conflicts in a way that is productive, i.e., that respects and values all individuals while also propagating a sustainable, non-parasitic culture.
> Because of that much of the advice the therapist give benefits the client at the expense of everyone else.
Hold up there- for such a sweeping generalization, I'd argue that you need to give clear-cut examples of this effect that you call "toxic" in your next sentence. You're not grasping the target audience here or even what the "me first" attitude is if you say it's at the expense of others. Let me give several examples of the people you claim are toxic.
My fiancée is a people pleaser- she is someone this article was written for and who seeks therapy. Tell me, how is it at the "expense of everyone else" for her to now be able to politely and confidently tell her bulldozer of a friend that she'd rather go home and sleep at 23:00 in anticipation of her 06:00 shift instead of watching "classic" movies her friend wants to watch until 04:00 three or four times each week? I'd contest that it isn't.
How is it "at the expense of everyone else" for my little brother to be able to politely yet assertively tell his housemates he'd rather get a head start on his CS term project this weekend than get sloshed and deal with a hangover? I'd contest that it isn't.
How does it "create a toxic environment" for me to take some PTO to avoid burnout instead of participating in the actually toxic culture of a company that has an unlimited PTO policy but considers it taboo for anyone to take time off? I'd contest that it isn't.
I'd contest that it isn't "at the expense of everyone else" for any individual who's been raised to do anything and everything their mates, family, ecclesiastical associates, coworkers, casual acqauaintences, etc ad nauseam ad infinitum asks of them to instead say "hey, I'm going to take care of my mental health by learning to be assertive instead of burning out or being miserable forever."
There are ENDLESS comments and articles on hn lauding people who make choices to avoid burning out on their careers, about learning not to say "yes" to every request from a coworker that comes across their desk, yet I don't see anyone crying about how this is "toxic" and that it's "at the expense of everyone else"; you somehow seem to think this same principle doesn't apply to individuals in their own lives.
I hope these examples illuminate who this article is meant for and clarify what the "me first" attitude is in this context.
I'm not so sure if it is a side effect of therapy? At least in the modern capitalist world, people seem to be pretty 'me first' whether they've done therapy or not. Take America, where we refuse to have significant social safety net. I don't think this is because everyone started doing therapy...
I vaguely remember this being somewhat of a problem for me when I was much younger. But after getting married and having kids, saying No to requests became natural for me.
I’ve been divorced so long I don’t really even consider myself divorced. I realized my part in the dissolution of my marriage was basically never saying no. Something in that realization clued me in to all kinds of social concepts and consequences I’d been basically unaware of my entire life. The closest thing I can compare it to is the growing awareness of your expanding consciousness you experience as a teen. I was the same person but a new window on the world opened up and I’ve never had a problem saying no since.
Out of curiosity, do you feel like it was the never saying no that was the biggest problem, or was it the things that stemmed from never saying no?
For me, there were a whole host of things that came with being uncomfortable saying no, such as: building resentment resulting from doing something I didn’t really want to, passive aggressiveness, avoidance of conflict, disappointment when people still weren’t pleased after doing what they asked/shifting goalposts, feelings of being and/or actually being taken advantage of, etc.
Pretty much all of the related issues above caused issues in relationships and anxiety, among other health issues.
Not parent poster, but in my apparently-similar experience, it’s just that not saying no will inevitably result in halfhearted effort down the line, which means the results will underwhelm and hence generate more issues.
Hah, I think I may be the exact opposite. It triggers anxiety within me, which then triggers perfectionism, which then triggers all kinds of unhealthy other compulsions. I really do try to tackle everything, and exceed expectations, at a personal cost (e.g., burnout). One time I lost 25 pounds due to stress, which ended up being a positive as I have kept it off, but was miserable at the time.
I definitely leaned on the perfectionist side. Some of this is messy and difficult to pull apart because although I brought this problem into the marriage my ex is not blameless either. One thing I know is a direct consequence of never saying no is a lack of respect and a lack of attraction. Regardless of why a person never says no they are seen as a doormat, which is unattractive in both men and women.
On the messier side, a few years after our divorce she ended up suing me to adjust our divorce settlement and as part of that process gave a deposition in which she gave no legally relevant details but instead offered a diatribe on what she considered my failures in our marriage. (This did not impress the judge.) It was surprising to me for a few reasons. First, our divorce had been amicable. Second, she had raised none of these issues while we were married so we could have talked about it and/or fixed the issues. Third, it showed that she not only didn’t appreciate the tremendous effort I put into the marriage and her and our family, she wasn’t even aware of it.
Some portion of that is on her, but by never saying no I definitely helped to normalize a very high expectation as “bare minimum” or “no big deal”. I definitely felt unappreciated during the marriage but I just kept trying to do more. And if I don’t appreciate the work I do... why would anyone else?
Thank you for sharing! Your experience definitely resonates with me and I am similarly divorced. I especially relate to your comment about setting the bar high and it becoming expected instead of being appreciated that you’re going above and beyond. I have struggled with that at interpersonal and work relationships especially. Thanks again!
Same here. While it’s tempting to chalk this up under “ball and chain”, I think it’s more a matter of realizing how precious little time you have and raising your bar of acceptance accordingly.
I basically have two answers to requests - it’s either “sorry, gonna pass” or “HELL YES”.
Edit: A trick I learned from Non-violent Communication is to reframe requests internally from “I have to do x” and “I should do x” as “I want to do x”. It much easier to make a decision when you hear the latter out loud.
I understood CreepGin's comment to be about saying "no" to the wife and kids (and your comment to be about saying "no" to others). Maybe there was some intentional ambiguity or maybe I'm too cynic.
I have found marriage & kids to be a good litmus test for character quality. If you say 'no' to a request and they blame the 'ball and chain', red flag.
I used to be exactly the person the article describes. Then I became an engineering manager. A year later, I cannot even recognize the old, people-pleasing me. Saying "no" by default, not jumping into commitments, pushing back on unreasonable demands (from both above and below) - all come so naturally to me now it's unbelievable.
I suffered from this in way I can barely explain. Recently I came to a place where I thought that 'if' you live your life like an adventure where anything you do has to be very exciting, than a yes means you really want to do, not just a 'why not' but something that tickles your soul. And a no was the reflection of that, "I could come, and do that, but it will be boring in a way and I'll only be a ghost which would be a shame for my existence and yours". Kinda like a contrast amplifier to filter out the noise in the middle. Well now that I think of it.. it's a bit like analog vs binary.
ps: it may sound maniacal to always strive for deep excitement, but you can suffer from the dullness of things you don't enjoy .. you lose yourself seriously and socially people start to see you as the dull thing making half smiles. It's a 10fold loss at every stages.
With that attitude, how do you convince yourself to do chores such as cleaning the house, or writing that boring glue-logic that your boss asked you to implement?
I think the only way these tasks can be made exciting would be to build a cleaning robot or write a "glue-logic compiler". But these approaches would probably get you divorced or fired.
I was talking about interpersonal relationships mostly. For work I can't answer much, depending on the context, a job is a job, you signed for it, if the boss respects you and it's important for it to be done then I'd have no issue personally. If the job is disrespectful and not important I'd say no and do something else for the company.
For chores.. that's up to you if want to live in filth. It's hygiene, nobody wants to do it, but it makes the rest (the things that you really like) a lot nicer.
Often it's closely related to miscommunication between High-Context culture people and Low-Context culture people.
A people pleaser usually is from the high context, and implicitly by accepting to help there is an expectation that the person asking is at least just not merely exploiting them for personal gain and at least aiming to increase the collective value.
Once you have identified what type of culture someone tend to follow. It becomes easier to say no to them because you know what to expect. It also allows you to know when to say yes even when the presented deal doesn't seem immediately rewarding because it opens some new interesting paths often leading to hard to anticipate long-term win-win situations.
As a bonus, identifying their culture will allow you to communicate more effectively.
One of my go-to examples of high-context is The Wire's "fuck" scene. Two professionals in perfect sync investigate a murder scene. The communications themselves are not very important because they are relying on a high level of context -- they already have familiarity with the case and with each other.
On the other side of the spectrum, think about any episode of CSI or NCIS where the characters narrate everything they do and think to each other. It's necessary exposition for the viewer, and perhaps in a real-life setting collaborating in this way keeps everybody on the same page. It isn't bad at all, it is just a lower context mode of communicating.
Because GP was discussing a socially sensitive topic, but the other person asked for an explanation about an easily googleable concept. This is intentional noodle-braining, explanation on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/ixp19i/did...
Often it's pretty straight forward when you ask yourself the question.
As all cultural phenomenon, there is a strong local component to it but there are still many variations : knowing where they are from, whether they grow up in big city or small rural areas, is often a good starting guess. But after a few sentences exchange showing how direct or considerate of your specificity they are, how they value your time, you usually know without doubt.
It's just about making sure you are in the right communication mode with the right person.
To bring it back to the article theme :
The way people hear a no is also pretty characteristic. So listening to their reaction when you are telling them no is also a pretty strong signal.
For example if you tell no without justification to someone from high context culture when he asked something (if he ask it probably means that from his point of view he is expecting a positive answer) he won't probably take it good. And you have a few second to come-up with a sensible reason if you don't want to ruin the relationship.
Whereas someone from low context culture is usually more direct and the no carries less weight to give or take, as in their eyes it means they will just ask to the next person.
Let’s say your problem is time: you agree to too much. I struggle with the balance of helping others and getting my own stuff done. My stuff gets done, but may take longer than I would like.
At work yesterday, I was helping some other teams and saw they were going down the wrong path. I had, at this point, already told them I had to stop helping to get my own stuff done. But I couldn’t just let them waste hours doing the wrong thing when I popped back into slack during lunch. Queue my need to help, and I was reengaged to avert lots of wasted time on a time sensitive issue. Now I’m a bit behind today. My manager would likely say to let them worry about, do my stuff. But that feels wrong to not support others where you can. This is my “saying no” problem.
You are effectively "saying no" to your manager. In your estimation helping your colleagues is more impactful to the company than doing your current task.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the attitude. The manager's intention is probably to help you shield yourself from unwanted help requests. But if you actually think you should help that team, then do it!
The article concludes with suggesting people adopt the ‘soft no’. If the readers of this advice have issues with tension or anxiety (which is where the article seems to be targeted), that could backfire quite badly. If a person is known for their people pleasing yeses, a soft no could just be sending the signal that the requester needs to apply more pressure. Saying no naturally involves some level of confrontation, skirting around the confrontation usually has the effect of also skirting around the delivery of the correct message.
A "soft no" implies respectful environment. Current working and world conditions precludes this.
If you find yourself working for an environment that has started positive transformation, a "soft no" will be heard. This is indicative of such an environment (a listening environment).
I don’t think a soft vs hard no has much to do with respect (and I’m not sure why you think respectful working relationships aren’t possible). A hard no is just a definitive answer, and can be delivered as respectfully as you like. A soft no is usually an “I would if not for...”. Which some people will simply read as an invitation to remove blockers, or correct your mistaken prioritization decisions, so that you can deal with the more important issue of what they want you to do.
Preclude means to make impossible. I’ve also never in my rather long career noticed world affairs have a noticeable impact on my office culture. So I really do have no idea what you’re talking about.
The way I do this is respond with "Can I get back to you on that?" And perhaps append with "I need to check my schedule" or "check with my spouse, etc"
And then make sure I do get back to them with an answer.
When I make a snap response to a request, I often regret it because I haven't had time to think about the request and how to relates to my schedule, plans, interests, desire to help, pros, cons etc.
By asking for more time to decide, I get the chance to think about it and that increases the chance that I'll make a decision that I'm happy with.
Of course there are situations that call for an immediate response or that you know whether you want to say yes or no immediately, but for all others, the above works for me.
At work, most requests come in through e-mail, IMs or tickets/tasks, which is great because it means I can let them simmer for a bit.
But then there's some colleagues who send me a DM with a "hi are you there / can I call you" because they have something that they want out of their system Right Now (with e-mail and co, you send, then the something remains in the background until replied; with a call it's a one off thing and they can move on).
And my first job had some of the worst; they'd send an e-mail, then a few minutes later give me a call "did you get my e-mail?" and repeat what was in there on the call. I mean come on. At least I can laugh about it now, and I didn't mind so much when I did it because it was a very er, dynamic job anyway.
From Yes to No is a hard 180. That's like nice to rude for a lot of people pleasers. Instead you can start by never saying Yes. This can even be fun for a while. Don't need to say no, but can't say yes. But after a bit of this, you find it easier to just say no, and even more respectful of other's time. And there you have it. Now you're saying no.
Clicks article on how to say no. Is asked to say yes to cookies and such. Clicks Decline just for the fun of it. Article is presented in glorious unstyled Times new Roman.
I remember when it was “fashionable” for Marketing and Sales folks to never say no, and the rhetorical gymnastics they would go through to say no, while not actually saying “no,” would be amazing.
Note that people pleasing is often a side effect of trauma and early relationship. Not that being nice is bad, but when you can’t put up and boundaries or are anxious about saying no that can often be a good indicator. Certainly not for everyone, but it would’ve been helpful for me to hear.
A concept that changed my life is the concept of 'emotional slavery' used in Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication theory (NVC). He teaches that others are not always responsible for our feelings, and that we often feel the way we feel because an important universal human need is not met. Yet we are not taught to be aware of these feelings. He says that in our modern culture it's common for 1) men to be taught to deny their feelings and 2) women to be taught to deny their needs.
By listening to his talks and his audiobooks and using the definitions, frameworks and spiritual ideas behind NVC, I started to become more aware of the strategies I came to use, and the potential for evolving those.
Rosenberg believes that the adoption of NVC comes in three steps that we can all go through once we start applying his ideas. It starts with 1) 'emotional slavery' - where we are unaware of how we blame everything on others and make them wrong for what they do. Second we go through the 'obnoxious phase' where we feel angry when we become aware of our slavery ways, and where we realize that we might have been stuck in various strategies where we also thought we were responsible for others' feelings and needs. We are angry because we want that to change. Lastly comes 'emotional liberation', where we are learning to better understand our feelings and unmet needs and where we can start asking for what we want.
I practiced NVC together with my ex-partner, and in my eyes we both grew our self-awareness enourmously.
I'm curious about what people think of a "second-request" kind of strategy I have at work:
Sometimes when I get asked to do something I feel is unreasonable, unwarranted, or unnecessary (and it's not something like, there's a fire in the conference room and I'm trapped, please help), I'll totally ignore it, but if they ask a second time, I'll just do it.
Very often they either forget, or just do it themselves before coming back, confirming that it was either unnecessary or they didn't need me to do the thing in the first place.
If they do come back, it's easy to come into the plausible deniability and "Oh sorry I forgot! I'm on it." And then maybe guilt them with "I was caught up in ${task that actually is part of my job}."
That strategy worked well for me, although I wasn't actually trying to ignore the requests. I just got a lot of requests and wasn't organized about them, so some things fell through the cracks.
That said, I would push back on things that I was definitely not going to do. For some things, that's person A can do this; for others that's if you can find someone to do this, ok; for some it's I'm not going to do this unless my manager or the CEO personally asks me to; for others it's I won't do this, and I won't deploy it, and I'll unmerge it if it's done by someone else. And always try to give people an idea of when to remind me if I haven't done it.
- "The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal, Save The Relationship and Still Say No" by William Ury, the Co-Founder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation
+1 for that book. This is how I reviewed it on Goodreads:
"William Ury summarizes the main idea in this book as: Yes! No. Yes? When you say no to something, there is a reason. For example, you say no to working late, because you want to spend time with your family. The first yes is the yes you say to being with your family, and it is the reason you then say no to working late. The third yes is the effort to keep the relationship positive, even though you have said no.
This formula is a great way of saying no in a positive way, and the whole book is spent explaining the formula and how to apply it. There are many examples throughout the book, and William Ury does a great job teaching the reader how to say no in the best possible way. Even if you don’t normally have a hard time saying no, it is still valuable to read, because the system he lays out is so well thought out. It’s a quick read, and all the examples make it even easier to understand."
Yes we need to have boundaries but a part of me thinks the popularity of 'not being a people pleaser' is in the label 'people pleaser' and its negative connotation. I set boundaries and listen to my needs but also make a habit of doing good things for others... not for my own self-agrandising or relieving myself of guilt but to set the EXAMPLE of what is good and how I would like to be treated—I don't really care about people's perception of me unless it has some logical argument to it and a lesson in it. Today I felt like getting in touch with people I haven't caught up with in a while and it was great.. it's part of my character.. I like to feel connected. I am upset by the number of transnational people out there that only hold space for you (well try to hold space) when they need you. In short.. understanding your boundaries is good.. BUT making a habit of not being a label.. a perception that sharing your goodness is some wicked thing that saps you of energy.. maybe think carefully if a boundary is being crossed or not first. Some people do gain pleasure from doing good for others. I've certainly learned from going too far with kindness for my perception but that's how you find your boundary and way to being truly sincere.
A brother of mine gave me an advice on this recently, goes like this: “just say no! After that find a reason why and give it, but first a no without thinking about it”
I liked it
It doesn't seem constructive to always say "no" to things. "Yes" is how things get built. If you say "yes" to the right things, and then execute well, you'll go far in life.
I'm not arguing against saying "no" to things, but a policy of blanket "no" will leave you pretty unfulfilled.
Yeah I have worked with people who are oppositional as a rule: i.e. no matter what is proposed, they will find a flaw or a reason it's a bad idea. These were some of the worst team environments I ever worked in.
It's easier to change from a "No" to a "Yes" than from a "Yes" to a "No". For instance, someone promise to take part in an event then at the last minute backed out. This is deal breaking. Compared this with saying "No" first then at the last minute indicating you will be able to take part. Saying no first is always better, you can always upgrade.
I also agree that things get done by saying "yes". But, there are only 24 hrs in a day, and if you want to accomplish great things you need to focus, that requires saying no a lot.
To quote Warren Buffet : "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."
I think a "Let me check my schedule" or a "Send me more details" makes more sense in cases where you don't know whether you want to do it.
This makes people aware your time is limited, makes them do at least a little bit before they get (or don't get) your time and gives you time to decide with a little bit distance.
I'd like to hear some comments from people who have experienced a situation where two people pleasers get into a feedback loop where they both start always saying yes to each other.
I've experienced this kind of situation before and I'm only recently realizing that this is the nature of that situation and am starting to unravel it.
I think this even happens to non-people-pleasers sometimes, when the context makes such a "yes loop" appropriate. For example in sales there are some junctures where it's appropriate to bring a big-picture win of a relationship into the "yes zone" so that the "no zone" issues can take a breather.
There are some good examples of that in this talk:
There's also the theory that some people "metabolize" social communication in specific patterns, and different matches of these patterns create different problems or opportunities. The match-up you mention quite often suggests outward actions, or co-decisions that are made after the co-narrowing of possibilities: "Here are five places we can go today. I like them all. Do me a favor and pick your top three?" Accompanied by logical explanations as needed, this can be a really powerful technique. But yeah, also tough stuff...
Quite often it's absolutely ok to make a subjective guess at a best outcome, move ahead, and trust that the other party will understand, based on your decision logic and your general willingness to be open.
From my experience: they end in a situation where nobody is happy - they both try to figure out what is the best for the other person and in the end they both end up in a situation that is not good for both of them. I know, twisted.
I am thinking about the bigger picture: what if functioning societies need people pleaser? For the individual it is not so good, but there should be an evolutionary reason why it exists (can also be a side effect of something else important of course).
It's not an absolute though; if you're a people pleaser you say 'yes' too much (and write yourself and your own interests off), but the opposite - rejecting everything - also isn't good. There is a balance, and everyone has to find it, set their own boundaries, manage their own time and energy.
Evolution does not demand anything of anybody, especially not of self-aware people who can make their own realizations about what's good for themselves.
Evolution means adaptation to change; "society" is made up of the people around you, and they will also adapt to changes. Sometimes you need to push back a little to make a comfortable room for yourself between them.
I think the biggest thing for me, which wasn’t covered in this article, was in understanding that even by saying yes all the time you are NOT guaranteed to please or make the other party happy.
This is important to understand because, speaking for myself, my emotional motivation to please people stems from my primary desire to avoid emotional tension.
In understanding that even by sacrificing my own desire I’m in no way guaranteeing that outcome was a game changer for me. Furthermore, avoiding these negative emotions can make things worse or generate more of the emotion I was trying to avoid, in the long run.
I have a people pleaser throughout my life. As a small kid I was very timid and had social anxiety. As an adult, I still remain timid and have difficulty expressing my opinions. My people pleaser attitude had a detrimental effect on my software career. I said yes to all the production support tasks and spent so much time on it that I no longer got project coding work. I lost my software developer job. I have taken up a production support job yo pay the bills. My dreams died with it. I took an interim java coder job. I couldn’t code even one line.
> Lue says the soft no should be only about three sentences long. A common mistake, she says, is giving too much of an explanation or being over-apologetic.
I used to over-explain in these situations. The advice that finally changed my behavior was this: only explain yourself if you're willing to negotiate, if new information might actually change your answer. Otherwise, the reason is usually irrelevant, and you only open yourself up to a discussion.
I am a people pleaser. Something that helps me in relationships: I try to think of my actions in terms of the effects on the overall system rather than what my instincts tell me is the "right" thing to do. I can't trust my instincts. I have to analyze situations. And I know my people pleasing instincts are very harmful for all of my relationships - work, friendship, romantic - all of them.
I had to say no to a busy-work position this week.
And I am a people pleaser.
What I did frame it to my manager as saying ‘yes’ to my current work-state, which everyone agreed was going really well. Don’t want to mess up a good thing :)
As the song says: "How can people be so heartless? Easy to be hard, easy to say no." Also, situationally: "How can people be so stupid? Easy to relent, easy to say yes"
I see it very often that people who say 'yes' = good people, and people who say 'no' = bad peoples. I've certainly worked in places where turning down drinks after hours isolates you socially. I have also worked in places where those that say 'yes', typically are quite insufferable. I think for many years I have tried to be a 'yes' person but undercover. For example if I agree to drinks and I am aware there is another group that is also forming - with people I am less inclined to socialise with - I will steer the two groups apart 'Oh but I wanted to go somewhere I could eat'. I know this makes me a pretty bad person. More recently I have been able to be more upfront, and tell people I will 'see how it pans out'. If the group gets too big - which typically I can't deal with - then I will bow out.
It doesn't make you a bad person it makes you a good leader. You anticipated a bad social situation and smoothly avoided it making things better for everyone.
I've been complimented on my ability to say 'no.' It's incredibly useful to ensure I'm spending my limited time doing things that are impactful and worthwhile.
If you're a people pleaser, you attract narcissists like a magnet. If you had narcissists in family, you develop a blind spot to this and are mostly unable to spot it. I STRONGLY recommend the DoctorRamani channel for that, she's a professor specializing in narcissism.
When you watch Ramani's videos, you can see everyone around her shrink in fear of getting the "narcissist" label themselves, and offer her deference. It doesn't take a genius to see why she'd invest in a professional identity that lets her do this.
In the comments, you can also see that many people identify with her and take pleasure from watching these displays.
Meditating on the figure of the Narcissist makes us see the Narcissist in others (so better to resist them), makes us pity the Narcissist (the better to show them contempt, and the better to elevate ourselves), and simultaneously makes us envy the Narcissist's self-seeking (to make us more self-interested ourselves). It turns us partly into Them. So even as an evil god, I am not sure the Narcissist belongs in our pantheon. Best if he is at most a bit player.
Human connection is the preference that weighs many times more than all the others combined. Prioritizing my own inane sense of self rather than adopting behaviors that could enable relationships was just idiotic self-torture.