10 Things to do when people bring you their problems

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1. Empathize with hurt feelings.

2. Reflect a genuine concern.

3. Offer a summary of the problem as you see it.

4. Be slow to give advice. Let the other person come to the best decisions themselves whenever possible.

5. Distinguish between causes and symptoms.

6. Keep confidences.

7. Wisely use questions. Especially open-ended and indirect questions. Use “why” sparingly.

8. Watch your body language.

9. Be willing to refer the person to someone else more qualified when the problem is beyond your abilities or knowledge.

10. Ask the person how he or she is doing a few days later. Let the person know you haven’t forgotten about them and you care. Their situation is important to you.

Stephen Goforth

stomping of the foot (before storming out of class)

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I'll never forget the student who charged out of one of my first philosophy classes. The professor had challenged the student's view of religion and the young man stomped his foot, turned red, yelled, and left the room.

Why such an emotional outburst? Perhaps his beliefs were built on a weak foundation. A little rhetoric from an authority figure threatened to topple the structure. When we accept the conclusions of other people, never figuring out the "why" for ourselves, weak lay a weak foundation. Should we intentionally avoid opposing view points? It turns out we naturally steer clear of conflict.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found the less certain you are about what you believe, the more likely you’ll stay away from opposing viewpoints (and freak out when you run across opposing opinion). After reviewing nearly 100 studies, they came to the conclusion that people tend minimize their exposure when they are less certain and less confident in their own position. In fact, we're nearly twice as likely to completely avoid differing opinions than we are to give consideration to different ideas. For those who are close-minded the percentage jumps even higher. Three-out-of-four times the close-minded person will stick to what supports their own conclusions. Details of the study are in the Psychological Bulletin by Researchers.

Stephen Goforth

Clothed with Happiness

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In Bermuda, Johnny Barnes decided to put on a prodigal display in 1986. He would stand at the Crow Lane roundabout in Hamilton, where most of the rush-hour traffic came past, and tell each passing motorist how sweet life was and how much he loved them. His days had long overflowed with happiness, in his garden and in his jobs as a railway electrician and a bus-driver, where he had taken up the habit of waving and smiling to anyone who passed as he ate his lunchtime sandwiches. He had lavished joy on his wife Belvina, “covering her with honey”, as he put it. But there was plenty left over.

For 30 years he went to the roundabout every weekday morning. He would rise at around 3am, walk two miles to his post, stay for six hours shouting “I love you!”, smiling and blowing kisses, and then walk home again. He was there in the heat, his wide-brimmed straw hat keeping off the sun, and there in the rain with his umbrella. Only storms deterred him and eventually, the creakings of old age… Over the years, he transmitted his radiant happiness to drivers hundreds of thousands of times.

Johnny Barnes, Bermuda’s “greeter” died on July 9th at the age of aged 93. Read more in The Economist.

Here are the Rules

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When someone gives you rules for your relationship whether explicitly or implied (“We can only talk about these subjects and not those subjects over there” or “We will only go to these places together” or “Only contact me in this particular way”) you have to decide whether this comes out of a legitimate concern to keep the relationship in a healthy place or whether it’s an attempt to control you-prompted by insecurity and fear. In other words, is this a request that you become co-conspirators in hiding from painful truths about the person making the request?

Stephen Goforth

why we do it

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Nikki was driving through the Rocky Mountains with her daughter when their truck hit black ice and flipped over the guardrail. Nikki was knocked unconscious as the vehicle rolled over four times and landed on a barbwire fence. When five-year-old Mary couldn’t wake her bleeding mother, she didn’t sit and cry. Mary crawled out of one of the broken windows and climbed 150 feet to the road where she waved down at a passing truck. As emergency workers cut the roof off the truck to get Nikki out, Mary waited in one of the rescue vehicles. She asked a paramedic if her mother was dead. It would be three days before Nikki would wake up.

When Mary was later asked why she went for help on her own, the kindergartener said, “I needed to save my mom because I love my mom.”

Nikki and Mary recovered from their injuries at home. Mary was given an award for bravery.

Stephen Goforth

Recovery

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Outcomes by themselves don't really have an unambiguously positive or negative effect on your happiness. Yes, there are some outcomes—you get a terminal disease, or your child dies—that are pretty extreme, but let's leave those out. But if you think about it, the breakup that you had with your childhood girlfriend, or you broke an arm and were in a hospital bed for two months, when they occurred, you might have felt, “Oh my goodness, this is the end of the world! I'm never going to recover from it.” But it turns out we're very good at recovering from those, and not just that, but those very events that we thought were really extremely negative were in fact pivotal in making us grow and learn.

Raj Raghunathan quoted in the Atlantic