Being kind to others is good for your health • Hacker News Board

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#191

Post by noisy_boy » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

ryder9 wrote: post #178

Balgair wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is see such things, gain that information, and then choose to use the data in a way that is nice for the person. That is one element of kindness. For the facelift example, you notice it, and then remark about how youthful the director looks in that new shirt. For the shoes example, you notice it and then remark about their good fashion sense. For the hair example, you go to them and see how the home life is…

i think it's rude to point out someone's plastic surgery, no?

> how youthful the director looks in that shirt

indeed, that why you don't comment upon that directly

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#192

Post by closeparen » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #148

ytwySXpMbS wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet everyone silently hates those people, people who waste everyone’s time just to prove how smart they are, usually failing in the process. There were always those people in my lectures.

> everyone silently hates those people What? No. I don’t have a good sense for this. Having friends and colleagues and a partner with the focus and attention span for it is invaluable. Like it or not, power dynamics are real. And teams with someone tuned into their social dynamics can work better than one purely technical and aloof. Just because one doesn’t have a sense for a thing doesn’t make that thing despicable.

I think he's talking about people who respond to the professor's questions in lecture.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#193

Post by OJFord » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

Biganon wrote: post #190

xyzelement wrote: post #175

Defaulting to generosity - while operating with healthy boundaries - is by far the most beneficial mindset. The alternatives are: Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you. Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where…

I find it kinda weird that you called the doormat archetype gross, and not the abuser.

I read it as 'a gross position, don't put yourself in it'; not 'anyone in such a position is themselves gross'.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#194

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

Biganon wrote: post #190

xyzelement wrote: post #175

Defaulting to generosity - while operating with healthy boundaries - is by far the most beneficial mindset. The alternatives are: Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you. Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where…

I find it kinda weird that you called the doormat archetype gross, and not the abuser.

[deleted]

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#195

Post by xyzelement » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #193

Biganon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it kinda weird that you called the doormat archetype gross, and not the abuser.

I read it as 'a gross position, don't put yourself in it'; not 'anyone in such a position is themselves gross'.

Exactly. It's also unpleasant to witness this happening to someone else. In contrast I used 'hate' for the abuser.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#196

Post by tossmeout » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #175

Defaulting to generosity - while operating with healthy boundaries - is by far the most beneficial mindset. The alternatives are: Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you. Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where…

The variables here are:

* where your boundaries lie along the spectrum from self-serving to doormat

* your propensity to be generous to people on the good side of your boundaries

I myself trend close to what you'd call a stoic. Probably out of fear of being a doormat. My boundaries are healthyish, but I don't quite trust them. So I don't seek out help from others, and in return I hope they don't ask for generosity from me. Being generous without crossing my boundaries is something I have to work on.

I know some narcissists who can actually be quite generous. This fools them into thinking, "There's no way I'm a narcissist!" because they can easily recall past instances of generosity. Yet they're still regarded by others as selfish. Their boundaries are shifted so far in their favor that they feel taxed being generous to others who most would deem worthy of generosity. And they expect sympathy, attention, and generosity in situations where most would not have that expectation.

These abusers often do end up ostracized, but that doesn't always look like solitude. They become victims, upset at their crummy relationships and unable to garner sympathy from others, yet unwilling to ever point the finger at themselves. Some end up alone, yes. Others befriend other victims who they can commiserate with, but those relationships don't last long for obvious reasons. So it's sort of a fleeting, on-again off-again ostracism.

Of course I'm speaking in generalities here. Plenty of victims aren't narcissists, etc. And I do have sympathy. Nobody chooses to be a narcissist. I think some people are just wired that way, or perhaps set on that course by environmental factors early in life. Either way, it's not a choice. So I think it's somewhat of a tragic condition.

My advice would be that if you're consistently getting negative feedback about your personality traits, take it seriously. It'll be tempting to deny and seek disconfirmation, e.g. by changing the subject, blaming your accusers, deflecting to other causes (e.g. race or gender), or running away to find people who will say nice things about you. But for all our follies, human beings are naturally pretty decent judges of character. If you're getting consistent character feedback from lots of different people, it's probably accurate.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#197

Post by flowerbeater » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

ohyes wrote: post #86

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can take many forms. Folks each have their own "schtick," but it's what they are after that matters. 1) Money 2) Property They want me to give them money or goods. 3) Prestige They want me to feed a need for prestige. This can be as simple as agreeing with them in public, an endorsement or referral, or a requirement for some kind of submissive fawning. I started to write up a detailed description of how this can h…

> I have spent my entire adult life amongst some very aggressive and manipulative people, and keeping a good relationship with them, while gently enforcing personal boundaries, has always been a challenge. Okay, I’ll bite, why would you keep people like this around you? It sounds unpleasant.

In my life, this was an aggressive employee we hired who was not performing but also passive-aggressive to everyone, and at the beginning we were obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt (due to their explanations that they're struggling with the pandemic, civil unrest, family emergency, elections).

Then even after gathering evidence of their poor performing, they will just keep arguing their case, and would protest to everyone who will listen, and pit people against each other. They will claim they never knew those things were their responsibilities, that they were working hard on it, and that they were just about to address the performance issues, etc.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#198

Post by 50 » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

bluetomcat wrote: post #188

50 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, there is this idea of egoism. To think merely of profit - which you see in major cities with millions of people in the United States, it seems - is to be egoistic. The root of kindness is egotistical poverty. After all: egoism overlooks, kindness sees. You may substitute the words 'humility' or 'attention' for 'kindness' for the former and latter claim, and it will still hold true. And therefore, egoism…

I would call it outwardly-expressive utilitarianism. The idea that the individual should channel their views, emotions and experiences through self-expression and self-identification, for the purpose of achieving tangible worldly goals. It’s an interesting amalgam of the traditions of Anglo-Saxon liberalism and of Protestantism with its practices for preaching and confession, transitioned on a new geographic and inst…

The mention of utilitarianism reminds me of this idea of insensibility. A calmer culture, I assume, is grounded in sensibility.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#199

Post by bitexploder » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 3:17 AM UTC

chefandy wrote: post #126

bitexploder wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to be very direct day to day. I think kindness doesn’t have to be in personal interactions, especially in a business context. I’m perfectly polite, but also very honest. I still use empathy to understand where people are coming from. You have to learn to give unconditionally without becoming a doormat. It’s tricky. I think you have to be purposeful with how you give to others. I also help people out and do my…

>I think kindness doesn’t have to be in personal interactions, especially in a business context. I’m perfectly polite, but also very honest. To be frank, I find the ratio of people who actually do that to people who think they do that but are really using it as an excuse for not exercising their interpersonal skills is 1:1000. I've known many people that called themselves brutally honest, but with the exception of on…

I have been managing people for many years now. It’s a hard balance, but I always start from a place of empathy. I find it easy to be empathetic first and then lay out then business/situational needs. We don’t do brutal honesty, just gentle honesty. When people are brutally honest they just use it as cover for being an asshole. I am probably not being clear about what I think about kindness, it’s a subtle point. Even kindness overdone can be patronizing.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#200

Post by xyzelement » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

tossmeout wrote: post #196

xyzelement wrote: post #175

Defaulting to generosity - while operating with healthy boundaries - is by far the most beneficial mindset. The alternatives are: Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you. Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where…

The variables here are: * where your boundaries lie along the spectrum from self-serving to doormat * your propensity to be generous to people on the good side of your boundaries I myself trend close to what you'd call a stoic. Probably out of fear of being a doormat. My boundaries are healthyish, but I don't quite trust them. So I don't seek out help from others, and in return I hope they don't ask for generosity fr…

I found the clarity of your thinking and writing refreshing, it's rare for someone to observe and recognize these archetypes. I by and large agree with how you see it.

One thing jumped out:

>> I think some people are just wired that way, or perhaps set on that course by environmental factors early in life. Either way, it's not a choice. So I think it's somewhat of a tragic condition.

and

>> My advice would be that if you're consistently getting negative feedback about personality traits from others, take it seriously.

If you think about it these two comments are contradictory. Either you are a victim of your programming, or you have the power to (slowly and painfully) recognize it and change.

I am a firm believer that people ultimately can recognize their problems and change. Recognition is the harder part. For most of us, to recognize the really deep and ugly things about ourselves is really hard and often is only done when someone has hit bottom and are forced to confront that there's something wrong. It's easy to say "listen to feedback" but it's impossible to convince someone they should until they've had some painful experience that forced them to recognize there's something that needs to be heard. But it's possible and important.

The other thought as I was reading your comment - I think you'll enjoy Ray Dalio's Principles book.