It is often the loneliest people, those most riven by self-doubt and most unsure of where they belong, that make the most steadfast and salutary friends once they break through the barriers of insecurity and fear to allow connection. Because for them the gift of being understood is especially hard-earned, they give it back redoubled with gratitude.

This alteration of the real self requires tremendous emotional labor, which comes at a great psychological cost — we lose sense of who we are and where we stand. (Those of us who have had to take care of a parent’s emotional needs and feelings from a young age at the expense of feeling our own, at the expense of knowing our own, are particularly vu... See more

Hochschild offers a single, merciless antidote to this all too human tendency toward self-delusion: “constant attention, continual questioning and testing” of what we believe about ourselves, what we trust in ourselves. Then and only then can we begin to treat our hearts not as something to be managed but as something to be met, discovering in that... See more