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I'm addicted to being useful

seangoedecke.com

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Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> switching channel from practical problem-solver to emotional problem-solver Thank you for this useful tip! I've recently become aware that I may not be as good a listener I thought I was - I too make the common mistake of immediately offering solutions, or talking too much about my own relatable situations and feelings, instead of trying to really listen to them and help them figure out their own world view and fee…

Indeed, the more one knows about what it means to be a good listener, the more one becomes aware of not being such a good listener.

Being a good listener is one of the hardest jobs in the world.

And narcissists are soul sucking traps for good listeners.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#162
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frame it not as turning a dial down, but as switching channel from practical problem-solver to emotional problem-solver. Often when someone wants to talk about a situation involving difficult feelings, they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. You can help by being curious about what they're say…

> they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. If you’re speaking to a rational person with good intentions and good self-management this can help a lot. If the other person doesn’t have good emotional regulation and is prone to catastrophizing, exaggeration, or excessive self-victimization then vali…

It really matters how self-destructive the talking person tends to be.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#163

The article’s title is awkward. In it, he says he is addicted to being useful to his management queue. He avoids “time predators” and dismisses Jira ticket jockeys. That is the author’s real intention is to assert engineers should deliver what their bosses ask.

I don't think that's necessarily the case, it could just be that, in the author's role, the only people that articulate a need for help from him is his management chain.

I've had roles where my job satisfaction came from largely ignoring my management chain and helping people outside of my org for whom I was the point of contact for a set of services offered by my team's internal platform, and this piece really resonated with me.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then validating and reinforcing their emotions isn’t always helpful I think you might misintrepet what "validating someone's emotions" is/should do. It's not "You're absolutely right for feeling completely sad and broken down because the cafe wasn't open", but more "That must be such a horrible feeling, to feel so sad and broken down", without saying "yes/no" to if you think it's "justified or not". The point is th…

> In the end, you can validate someone's feelings without validating what they're feeling those about, by just saying "that sucks". If you say "that sucks" the other person is going to assume you're agreeing with them that the thing they're angry about sucks. They're not going to think you're saying "that sucks" that they have an emotion, as an isolated feeling that happened for no reason. This is where the overly ac…

> Nobody actually says "I agree that you are feeling that emotion but I neither endorse it nor disagree with it" (in less formal wording). If you're going along with someone else's emotions, you're implicitly endorsing their reaction as justified.

Yes, actually, lots of people have healthy partnerships where they disagree with how their partner got into the situation, but can still recognize that the partner's feelings about that situation is valid, regardless, since it's an emotion their feeling, it doesn't have to be rational or logical and it's certainly not up to you to decide if it is/was neither.

This is what emotional support is, not validating their actions, but validating the emotions they're feeling, regardless of why. And not seeing some emotions as more "correct and valid" than others, they're all valid and correct, since we're humans after all.

> They share the emotion because they want other people to agree that the emotion is right and justified.

This, in your words "falls apart in the real world", because people don't speak with others always with the same intention, sometimes people want to vent, sometimes people want to manipulate, sometimes people are looking for help, and a whole other rooster of reasons. Most of the time, people speak with others about their feelings because they want connection.

I think you're stuck in trying to separate "valid, rational and logical emotions" from "the rest of emotions" while that distinction matters less than you think, and you'll be seen as very emotionally cold/distant if you aren't able to accept people's emotion because they aren't "rational" (or whatever reason you use).

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#165
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be a challenging skill to apply, and you need to use your judgement to discern whether the other person is in a place to engage with what you say. One comment I'd make is the difference between "valid" and "rational". Emotions and feelings are always "valid", in the sense that they are a natural consequence of events and prior conditioning. But feelings are rarely "rational" - they often don't reflect the comp…

> Emotions and feelings are always "valid", in the sense that they are a natural consequence of events and prior conditioning. If “validating” someone’s emotions comes down to simply saying that, yes, I agree you felt that way, then I suppose that’s true. But when people talk about validating other people’s emotions it implies that they’re saying the emotional response was valid for the circumstances. I have someone…

Valid feelings and validation are unrelated.

The good kind of "valid" is about whether (a) your process of measuring reality might be broken to your detriment. And by extension (b) whether your communications channel with the person you are talking to is working.

Chris Voss's mirroring is basically TCP ACKs.

Then there are the people who say that they lack validation and are just narcissists looking for yes-men. Big difference on how much of your time is being wasted.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then validating and reinforcing their emotions isn’t always helpful I think you might misintrepet what "validating someone's emotions" is/should do. It's not "You're absolutely right for feeling completely sad and broken down because the cafe wasn't open", but more "That must be such a horrible feeling, to feel so sad and broken down", without saying "yes/no" to if you think it's "justified or not". The point is th…

I agree with your descriptions of the terms, but I think there's often a divergence between empathy (which I find great) and reflecting people's feelings (which I find good with caution). I want people to understand and help each other. But in some situations, reflecting people's feelings encourages them to make poor decisions. I should always provide a space for people to speak without scorn and with understanding,…

Reflecting peoples feelings is sometimes called "showing sympathy."

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#167
post #7

> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It b…

> It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. This can become toxic in itself, though. Some times venting and being angry is what someone wants to do, but in a workplace environment that’s not a good thing to implicitly condone and support. I’ve had some team members who just wanted to vent but not discuss solutions and (again, in a w…

His advice was specific to the husband - wife relationship. You’ll understand if you happen to get married or enter a long term relationship.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#168
post #32
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frame it not as turning a dial down, but as switching channel from practical problem-solver to emotional problem-solver. Often when someone wants to talk about a situation involving difficult feelings, they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. You can help by being curious about what they're say…

Be careful you don’t end up with people who have constant emotional problems that need fixing - or that you’re 100% sure that you’ll never need to say ‘no’. Speaking from experience. Some people really don’t like ‘no’, especially when they have emotional problems.

Then their emotions are not their only problem.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#169
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're actually trying to process those feelings: to understand where the feelings are coming from, to be validated, and to be able to take a broader perspective. If you’re speaking to a rational person with good intentions and good self-management this can help a lot. If the other person doesn’t have good emotional regulation and is prone to catastrophizing, exaggeration, or excessive self-victimization then vali…

It can be a challenging skill to apply, and you need to use your judgement to discern whether the other person is in a place to engage with what you say. One comment I'd make is the difference between "valid" and "rational". Emotions and feelings are always "valid", in the sense that they are a natural consequence of events and prior conditioning. But feelings are rarely "rational" - they often don't reflect the comp…

Other people have given good insights, so I'll instead describe one of my pet theories.

Given by how we talk about emotions, I think they are "rational", but operate under a different set of rules than we normally apply to "rational" thinking. In fact, feelings are deeply intertwined with our supposedly "rational" thinking, to the point where I don't think there is a significant boundary. The lack of information is prevalent when feelings are in play, and I believe the same is true in general. Even physics feels far different than pure mathematics, after all. Instead of deferring to conventions in how to act when feelings are involved, as if they belong to a wholly different and mysterious world, we can make sense of the entire world. But of course, empathy, kindness, and good judgement are not exempt. None of this conflicts with what you're saying, but I think a subtle shift in mindset will be fruitful in applying it.

Re: I'm addicted to being useful

#170
post #7

> I don’t mind the ways in which my job is dysfunctional, because it matches the ways in which I myself am dysfunctional As a fellow traveller, I offer one caution: learn to turn this down in personal relationships as it can be counterproductive. It took decades for my wife to finally get through and explain not every problem she voices is something that needs a solution. Some times people just want to be heard. It b…

That has been tricky with my partner because many times she legitimately does want me to just handle the problem for her, and then you get into the fuzzy area where it is my job to interpret what she says and her job to communicate what she needs clearly and you are often left with an ambiguous conflict where both parties feel justified.

I do generally find it is easier for women to respond with empathy instead of solutions because there is no background expectation that they are capable of fixing a problem their male partner has.

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