One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 4: overcoming them

on December 14, 2012 in Awareness, Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Now we are familiar with empathy gaps — that when you feel one emotion you generally can’t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion. We get how insidious they can be[…] Keep reading →

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 3: why empathy gaps make sense

on December 13, 2012 in Awareness, Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] As usual, understanding ourselves better helps us overcome the problems of empathy gaps — that when you feel one emotion you generally can’t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion. Yet[…] Keep reading →

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 2: research and experiments

on December 12, 2012 in Awareness, Blog, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday I talked about the effect that when you feel one emotion you generally can’t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion, nor do you realize you can’t, also known as[…] Keep reading →

Responsibility and consuming resources

on December 8, 2012 in Awareness, Blog, Nature

I remember as a kid in the 70s being taught a policy to turn off lights when I was the last to leave a room. People put stickers on light switches with that message. I don’t see that message that much any more. People seem to generally project that saving energy is better than not saving energy, but I see the idea more used to market selling products than changing[…] Keep reading →

Schopenhauer on the consistency and reliability of our emotional systems

on December 5, 2012 in Blog, Leadership

I haven’t read anything by Arthur Schopenhauer and hardly know anything about him, but I agree with this quote from him: Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. One can choose what to do, but not what to want. People contrast emotions with reason, see they differ, and conclude emotions are irrational, unpredictable, and follow no system. I agree they are hard to[…] Keep reading →

Perceiving tragedy

on November 12, 2012 in Blog

At the risk of posting too much on the recent storm and handling challenges, one more angle. Imagine a storm destroys two neighbors’ houses equally. Imagine they also have equal material resources to handle the situation. One neighbor looks at the wreckage and says My home is destroyed. I have to start from scratch. But I built my life up in the first place. I can do it again. I[…] Keep reading →

Sensationalist reporting

on November 2, 2012 in Blog, Nature

A reader responded to my post a couple days ago that the media always has a motivation to sensationalize stories. Really irresponsible. Lots of rescues of people who should have stayed inside. Two people DEAD because they walked their damn dog & tree fell on them The past few days I’ve commented on how a storm, while physically devastating, doesn’t have to emotionally devastate you. In fact, like any external[…] Keep reading →

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