2023-12-31
- Sometimes I talk with folks about their ideas for how to improve the world. Or, more humbly, how they plan to improve their own lives. I’ve noticed a pattern in myself in these situations. In the spirit of “helping” these people achieve their goals, I will propose reasons why their plans aren’t a great idea. You can imagine the simplest form as asking someone, who has come to me with a startup idea they are excited about, “why won’t [big company] just do that?” While I rarely present this question in an adversarial style, I’ve come to realize that this pattern of “helping,” even with a friendly tone, is influenced by factors other than altruism. Simply put, these kinds of questions usually involve me proving something to myself about myself. A typical example of something I’m proving to myself is that I am a person with deep insights about the world. I like to believe I can “predict” the outcomes of many things around me. It’s a part of my own identity and, frankly, ego. It’s tied
to beliefs about why I am worthy of respect, attention, love. And that part of me that needs validation regularly shows up in this style of questioning. In other words, when someone shares their idea with me, not only do I want to “help” them, I feel the need to “help” myself. I now find this quite distasteful. It violates the most basic rule of treating others well: treat them how you would want to be treated. And the truth is I don’t like interactions where someone claims they are being helpful while actually serving their own ego. Ok, fair enough. Recently, I’ve been trying to focus more of my “helping” energy in these conversations on identifying why things will work out, and trying to help the person build momentum towards achieving their goal. I’m trying to embrace the mindset that, in the contexts of conversations with friends about their plans, it is not my job to “protect” them from or “teach” them about things like “what if a [big company] copies you”. It is not
helpful, in most cases, to protect people from the things that excite them. What is helpful is to contribute to an expansion of their imagination about what is possible, to look for ways to share in the excitement that they have for making a change in their life or the world. Doing that really is helpful! Now, one thing is still a bit challenging. The golden rule does cut both ways. I’m also noticing myself much less interested in “convincing” people that the things I’m interested in are worth pursuing. I’ve noticed that some people I used to interact with regularly have a similar habit to my own of “trying to be helpful” by subtly (or not so subtly) discouraging me from exploring some path I’m excited about. And, now that I see my own ego showing up in these situations, it’s hard to ignore it in others. The challenge is that…well now I have fewer people to share in the excitement! It is more lonely. I don’t really know how to resolve this. Sharing, with many friends I love, reliably
feels…kinda bad these days. I am at a bit of a loss for how to carry things forward in those relationships. In the small number of cases where I have tried to explain these ideas to folks I love and trust, I am regularly met with this notion that I am “only looking for ‘yes’ men, to make me feel good about myself.” I don’t think that’s true. To be totally frank, I don’t think that’s particularly charitable interpretation of the ideas here. But that response, somewhat paradoxically, triggers the exact conundrum I feel like I entered the conversation with: I don’t enjoy the process of “convincing” people that my ideas are “right” or “good” or “worthy of charitable interpretations” and addressing this kind of thing feels like it puts me back into a position of “convincing” people of things they have strong (often ego-connected or ego-adjacent) opinions about. So…my response these days is to note that I don’t have a good way forward and to end the conversation until I come up with some
resolution here. I will end by noting that maybe it’s just my own ego all the way down. Maybe my desire to have friends that share in my excitement is also just another reflection of my need for validation. Honestly, I don’t know, though I am, at this point, skeptical that the specifics of what I’m looking for are problematic from an ego perspective. Some ego is probably good/healthy/useful, is my current view. Though the actual amount that is good tends to be much lower than what most people, including myself, carry around regularly.
Date
December 31, 2023