Trouble the Teacher

Having a low bar for asking for help is a learnable mindset. Now, whenever I encounter something difficult or aversive, my first thought is, “who would be the best person to have on my side here?” Then I begin to reach out to people who could help.

On asking for help…Don't be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?

When you look back at the most fruitful moments of your life years from now, you’ll be surprised to discover how many of them unfolded amid a big loss or a crisis or in the face of a giant unknown.

The experience is often so traumatic and exhausting that once they’re out of the thick of it, they don’t want anything to do with the ongoing struggle. There’s sympathy for others, but very little solidarity.

Often, in our doubt that we have a real story to tell, we hold something back, fearing that we don’t have anything else. And this can be a form of trickery. Surrendering that thing is a leap of faith that forces the story to attention, saying to it, in effect, “You have to do better than that, and now that I’ve denied you your trick, your first-ord

... See more

I call these experiences our dark teachers. The lessons that hurt, scare, scar, wound, and almost destroy us are very often the things that make us who we are because they require us to muster what we thought we could not muster—courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart. The time... See more

Remember that the problem is rarely about someone begin a villain. It's almost always the system. When you find someone that's frustrating you, breathe. Assume they're trying to help you avoid a cliff you can't see or are under hidden constraints. Be curious, empathetic, and seek to understand.

At their root, every single tragedy is either a reminder the ways that life is unbearable for so many or a news flash that for many somebodies out there, life just became increasingly more unbearable. Life was either already too impossible or it suddenly became more impossible. Some of us experience relatively few moments when the news of increased... See more