Betsy, What are your views of the Union and the world?

for >10 years now i’ve been a student of the crucial skills newsletters hoping to become so insightful…, BUT recently i was hashing things out in the therapist’s office and (the next day) had a realization that one of the stories i bought from you has been really hard to tame!

i’d been telling myself for years and years that most reasonable, rational, and decent (dare i say emotionally mature???) human beings will act it out if they don’t talk it out. (the implication being acting it out can have bad consequences so we should try to avoid that if possible in order to maintain safety and relationships; talking it out is one way of doing so, addressing issues before they become more riskily acted out.)

…and yet, the lessons from the therapist’s office couldn’t have been clearer or more impactful: some people much prefer acting it out…and that’s totally their very reasonable prerogative;
maybe it’s because they feel it’s more realistic and are otherwise scared of being “politicked” or “out-talked”(…”out-spoken” doesn’t have the connotation i’m going for there at all…),
maybe it’s because they feel as though they don’t have enough time for such an investment (i know a major theme here is that it actually costs more time AND money in a business setting not to have crucial conversations/accountability, but i’m not the one who needs convincing!),
maybe it’s because they just don’t want to be that intimate with me… (because i’m “intense”, understandably, when i try to talk things out…)

regardless my sense of entitlement to what i consider adult conversation was giving my romantic and professional lives a slant that was sabotaging all my relationships and ultimately threatens to cost me my 8-year PhD in a very real, very may-not-even-get-a-master’s-degree kind of way, and i (jokingly) blame this filter bubble!

i think that’s largely because i was about 20 when i started reading these newsletters and thought i was just behind if i didn’t understand these concepts, so i internalized them without much question; how could i have known how few readers you were reaching at that point…
please take over the world immediately with an emotional education curriculum that i can start my children off on so that this doesn’t have to happen ever again! haha

hopefully i can adapt the lessons i learn from you to this next level of growth; thanks a lot for the years of insight.

(+ fun fact and case in point: i, like you, was just harping on the etymology of communication last week… but all by my lonesome since patiently walking my dean back down his path to concluding my lack of professionalism looks too much to him like questioning the politically protected subjectivity of his authority at this point no matter how many crucial skills i use…)

Thanks for sharing that, Michele; it’s a great one to remember!

An apropos question for our times, and a keen response on your part.

In my opinion, the concept of POST-TRUTH –the Oxford English Dictionary word for 2016–, is very pertinent and relevant in shaping the widespread phenomenon discussed here.

Thank you for the learning opportunity.

Dr. Rogelio De León-Jones
Panamá

I would agree. I think for those trying to find common ground, they are assumed the fool.

With science being called into question, and the media brushed with a broad stroke, anyone seeking to find common ground should be applauded.