Listen
New skill that’s changing my life: listening. Turns out you can deeply understand most people if can shut up, listen very closely, and ask questions. Love and lust throws a wrench into all this, of course. This may sound obvious, but I found it surprisingly hard to stop interrupting conversations because I feared I wasn’t “properly” asserting my point of view. First, if you need to take over a conversation to be understood, the people you’re talking with likely don’t care about understanding you in the first place. Second, if you’re confident about your ideas then there’s no need to interrupt because truth shows up whether it’s been said or not.
Beyond the obvious personal benefits of listening, your undivided attention is one of the best gifts you can give. Advice is overrated and often a projection of the adviser. And even when it’s actually useful, no one follows advice until they feel like they came up with it themselves. After all, no se aprende en cabeza ajena. What people need is a good ear. They need to feel understood, validated, and seen. If you love someone I can’t think of a greater gift than giving them a supportive space to fully express how they feel.
Struggle as a distraction
Hard work does not imply struggle. I typically use struggle as an easy distraction to prevent myself from fully focusing on the present task. It’s an insurance against failure: if I don’t completely focus on something, then if I fail I can “reassure” myself it’s ok because I didn’t give it everything, anyways. In non-work settings, struggle comes up when I avoid hard emotions. Perhaps sadness, anger, or shame. But avoiding emotions because they’re uncomfortable only gives them more energy. I like how Spinoza described this phenomenon: “suffering ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”