Caring is an independent primary variable. You have to care first before agreeing or disagreeing can mean anything. And to do that you have to have a surplus capacity to care beyond caring about yourself, by working the “caring muscle.”
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Cynicism begins not because you don’t care but because you do care.
The same studies show that our brains ask the “caring” question first. This makes sense because historically and evolutionarily, trusting someone who is capable but does not care is likely to be a fatal mistake, but trusting someone who cares but is not capable might only be inconvenient because other resources can be found. This is why psychologis
... See moreBona fide other-focus requires mindfulness, compassion, patience, and generosity.
Caring personally is the antidote to both robotic professionalism and managerial arrogance. Why do I say “caring personally” instead of just “caring”? Because it’s not enough to care about the person’s work or the person’s career. Only when you actually care about the whole person with your whole self can you build a relationship.
“You have to love life before you can care about anything,” she writes. “One must be enamored with existence and occasionally even enchanted in the face of it,” she adds, “in order to be capable of donating some of one’s scarce mortal resources to the service of others.”