Misanthropic Geek Dot Net

Last week’s assignment touched on something I’d like to dive into a little deeper, which is the subject of understanding people complexly.  The basic idea here (despite the name of it) is quite simple.  To understand people complexly is to think of them in terms of their own life and experiences, and see them through the same frame of reference in which they see themselves.  In practice, this can be quite difficult (as I’m sure you already know).

You’re probably familiar with the old saying, “Put yourself in their shoes.”  What does this really mean, though?  To put yourself in that person’s shoes is to understand enough about them that you can recognize the reasons why they make the decisions that they do.  Very few (if any) behaviors that you encounter in everyday life are completely irrational.  There are reasons for everything.  These reasons obviously don’t always line up to our expectations, and often don’t even line up to the person’s stated values, but they exist.
 
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A while back I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and was recounting a bad encounter I had earlier that day.  The gist of it was that someone said some hurtful things to me, and it had hit me pretty hard.  This wise friend of mine said something that has stuck with me since then.  “When someone treats you poorly, it has at least as much to do with them as it does with you.”

The brilliance of that statement didn’t fully sink in that afternoon, as I was still in my own head and being affected by the emotions of the earlier encounter.  As time went on, though, the truth of it really shone through.  In future bad encounters with people, I found myself thinking more analytically about what part of it was something I had truly done, and what part was that other person taking their own problems out on me.  This simple thought process saved me quite a bit of turmoil over the years, and I thought it only fitting that I share it with you.
 
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So something bad happened. You might have offended someone. You might have made a choice that you wish you could undo. It might have been something bad that happened to you. You’ve got regrets. You’re in a rough place now. What do you do? Well, there are a lot of choices here. All of them will change the situation in some way, and they all have their own goals. The trick is thinking through far enough to see what it is that you want as an outcome, and picking the right path to get there. I’m going to do my best to break the options down below, and what good and bad can come from each one.
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You know how people will say “anything is possible” and you’ll roll your eyes and snort and cite some impossible feat as an example of how silly their statement is?  Well, they’re exaggerating (obviously) but they might have the right idea, after all.  There’s some work being done by a Stanford psychologist by the name of Carol Dweck who is making a pretty convincing (and thoroughly logical) case for how your perspective on things affects your actual abilities.  According to Dweck, if you believe abilities to be based on inherent or inborn traits, failures will discourage you (and, according to at least one study, actually make you start failing at things you could do before that point).  If, however, you believe that anything is possible with the right amount of time and effort invested in accomplishing it, you will take a more constructive look at failures, and accept them as lessons.

Read more:

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html

Got this link from Felicia Day on twitter. (Yes, I used to follow some celebs on twitter, which is a little creepy since I know what they’re up to even though I don’t actually know them, but let’s move past the stalkerish nature of social networking).

The post/article/whatever is about how it takes consistent persistence to improve at, well, anything. The topic at hand is photography, but you can apply these lessons to almost anything. The trick is just sticking with it, and not being afraid to make mistakes, since those are what teach you the most.

Without further ado:
Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking | 43 Folders