Tag: insecurity

They Have Feelings, Just Like You

There’s this one cashier at our grocery store that helps us sometimes. He’s disabled and has to sit on a stool while he slowly rings up our items. He’s very talkative and friendly, but his conversation is a little awkward.

I’ve noticed a lot of people avoid him. They know checkout will take longer and the topics will be weird, so they find a different line. More convenient, more comfortable. I caught myself avoiding his lane and felt awful.

He definitely notices when we recognize him and awkwardly shuffle away, as if we realized there’s a shorter line somewhere else. He can feel our impatience as he clumsily shoves our groceries into the bags. He knows we think his small talk is awkward. He can hear us thinking that employing a faster worker would be better customer service. After all, we’ve got important things to get to.

And he carries all this home with him every single night.

He’s a good sport and he makes the best of it. He tries to connect and he makes your day if he can. He knows some people like him. He’s proud of his work ethic and he’s a very sweet person. He’s got some friends and family who love him.

But sometimes he feels the hurt. Some days it really bothers him that people don’t want to see him. He wishes he could move faster so his customers would be satisfied. He replays the awkward comment he made to be funny, and hears again and again the pitying chuckle. He falls asleep to the impatient drum of your credit card on his counter. If he were more coordinated, he’d be more likable.

And he falls asleep with the same big feelings that I have when I’m embarrassed in front of my friends, the same big feelings you have when your boss makes you feel stupid.

“I can’t stand the IT guy. He’s super rude. Really unfriendly.”

Cassie always said what nobody else would say but everyone was thinking, so I knew that the rest of my team probably felt the same way about Ryan, who was there for the day installing new computers.

“Really? What happened?”

“I don’t know, he just… always looks really angry, and he seems annoyed when I tell him something’s not working. He never even says hi.”

I always encouraged my employees to speak freely, so I wanted Cassie to feel understood. But I’d worked with Ryan a lot, and he was a good guy.

“Have you gotten to talk to him much? He’s actually pretty nice once you get him talking. Maybe he’s a little shy, but he’s always been really helpful to me and he’s one of the hardest working people I know. You might like him if you get to know him.”

“Nope, his attitude sucks.” Cassie’s mind was made up.

Ryan is often misunderstood. He is very quiet and can be very serious. Focused, direct, and professional. Not exactly a social butterfly.

When people think and talk about Ryan the way Cassie did, it hurts Ryan. It’s not always to his face, but it gets around to him. Dirty looks, “feedback,” conversations overheard.

Cassie doesn’t know what has made Ryan who he is. Ryan served in active duty and saw some pretty dark stuff while trying to protect his country. Some of the stuff he had to see and do, he won’t talk about. “It just changes you,” he says. “You can never unsee it or undo it. And nobody back home will ever understand.”

Some nights he startles awake, ready to fight, only to find he’s sitting in a bed drenched in sweat. He has been through so much, sacrificed more than a lot of us can imagine. And it has left scars he carries with him to work every day–scars that rub people the wrong way. He’s seen more than just rainbows and butterflies, and you can see it on his face. But if you don’t know him already, it may just look like “unfriendliness.”

Ryan is a complete softy deep down. He’s head over heals for his wife and would give the world for his kids. He loves to serve. He has big feelings, just like the rest of us. It’s easy when we’re in Cassie’s position to forget that.

When I was about 7, I knew this girl named Bridget. She had a couple lively little siblings with cute curly hair–picture perfect. But she had plain black hair and lots of freckles. She was quiet and kept to herself. Shy.

Bridget brought me a picture that she drew of me as a gift. She had given me freckles, too.

“That’s so ugly! I don’t look like that at all! You’re so bad at drawing!” I yelled at her as I tore the picture down the middle and crumpled it up.

Tears welled up in Bridget’s eyes and she hurried away to hide. All alone.

Billions of people share this earth with you and me. Each one is unique. Each one has his or her own struggles and fears, insecurities and soft spots. But each one shares our humanness.

Look with compassion at the next person you see today, at the next person that bothers you, and the next stranger who interacts with you. They have feelings–big feelings–just like you. Good feelings and bad feelings. And you are going to have something to do with those feelings.

covey quote

You vs You-with

A scientific study published in 1999 examined how we are affected by listening to others’ opinions about us: First, Asian women were given a math test to do after reminders of the negative stereotype that women are bad at math. Later, Asian women were given a math test to do after reminders of the positive stereotype that Asians are good at math. The subjects performed significantly better when seeing themselves as “Asians, who are good at math” than as “women, who are bad at math.”

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There’s you. And then there’s you-with-_____.

You with your boss. You being watched by your in-laws. You surrounded by your employees. You feeling nervous with your date. You with the context of your work situation.

While you-with-anything is still the real you, it can be very helpful to not look at yourself only through the context of whatever is currently going on, whoever you’re with. Try looking at just you by yourself. Apart from the other thing, person, or situation.

Why is this so helpful? We have a huge tendency to define ourselves by the people around us and what they think. We tend to become the average of the people closest to us. We want to fit in, to please people. We also constantly hear their voices, even when they’re not talking out loud. What your boss thinks of you. What your parents think of you. What your buddies think of you.

When I look at a big decision I just made, while examining myself primarily in the context of the two or three employees it affects, maybe the big decision looks like a win. But when I do the mental exercise of separating myself and examining the decision in the context of simply who I have always wanted to be, what I really believe and value–maybe I find the decision wasn’t a win for me after all. Maybe it was just a people-pleasing win for somebody else.

Or vice versa. Maybe what you’re constantly feeling small about, because of how you know it looks to your parents, or what your boss thinks of you now–maybe that thing you’re regretting, feeling down about, kicking yourself over every day… maybe that’s exactly what you truly wanted and you need to give yourself some credit, encourage yourself, celebrate your growth.

If you don’t give yourself the credit of judging yourself for yourself, and instead constantly see yourself through the lens of another or in a context inseparable from others, you will say things you don’t really mean, choose things you don’t really want, and become a person you don’t actually believe in.

Of course there’s a limit to all this–if you completely stop considering what others think, you miss out on a lot of valuable feedback and you can start giving people very wrong impressions. You can stop working well as a team and you can hurt people. Being aware of others and how they feel is very important.

But there’s got to be a balance: “How will my employee take this?” must always be accompanied by, “How do I really see this?” And vice versa.

There’s a reason I encourage you mostly to focus on the independent part, though–seeing yourself distinct from the people and situations currently surrounding you. It’s because what we’ve experienced and learned throughout life has pounded an insecurity into us, leaving us constantly, endlessly agonizing over what others think, how they see us and our choices.

That’s the norm in society: Defining your life, your self assessment, and your worth through the lenses of others.

Try being fair to yourself. Give yourself some credit. What do you really think and want? Forget your boss’s opinion for just a minute. Or your parents’ expectations. What do you really, truly, deep down in your heart, believe and want out of yourself? That is immensely more important to your happiness and peace in life than what you know your co-worker is telling his friends about you.

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“I am a woman, so I cannot be good at math.”

“I am an Asian, so I can be great at math.”

Or maybe… “I am me, and I love math.”