I had an interesting conversation with my sister that I thought would be of interest here. Full disclosure, this post illustrates a neurodivergent thought correction, so it might read weird. But oh well.
We were talking about why I feel the need to correct or provide guidance to people in my life when all they wanted was connection. She expressed concern that I would be an “actually” father to my daughter, to which I responded that “no, because for my daughter, I enter Teacher Mode”. But before we talk about Teacher Mode, let’s talk about Normal Mode.
In Normal Mode, when I’m speaking to another human, I share my whole self. Within the context of this conversation, this means that I assume they should want to make good decisions that will lead to good results. Step one is trying to understand what their goals are, and that helps me calibrate my response. After that, if I identify a risk with their strategy, I bring it to their attention right away (to game theory enthusiasts, this is a collaborative finite game, with clear rules and a finite objective: success), in order to give them a better picture of the risk profile. To know of a fault in their plan and to not tell them would be weird… like letting someone walk into a pole. Or even worse, it would imply that I “think they can’t handle the truth”, or some such.
Teacher Mode is a collaborative infinite game, where there are no rules or objectives; the purpose is learning. When I’m teaching somebody, I don’t assume anything about their capacities, and I am able to summon an incredible amount of patience to allow people to make the same mistake 47 different times (not always… no one likes poopy-throwing parties). When working on a skill with my daughter, it doesn’t matter what MY expectations are; the only thing that matters is her perception of events and how they connect.
After hearing this distinction, my sister asked me, “how about Family Mode?” I’ll spare you the whole conversation but effectively we discussed that when people that love me tell me something, they are interested in having me match their emotion, not debug and diagnose their problem. From my (previous) point of view, for somebody to be excited about something that I considered destined for failure is foolish, and it was my self-appointed duty to assist them in debugging why they thought this was a good idea.
You can imagine the number of fights I’ve had in my life circling around this point.
Today, something finally clicked in my head, I need Family Mode.
Family Mode is another collaborative infinite game, in which the purpose is to … actually I’m not sure yet what the exact goal is. Some candidates: “to love | to support | to connect | TBD”. Nor am I certain about the rules… but I’m pretty sure they do change. What is important is that I will be a more successful friend/family member/husband/(employee?)/(human???) if I match excitement with excitement. There’s a big difference between “Wow, 20 people have already signed up to this event!!!” and “Hey Amit, do you think 20 people signing up is a lot or a little, and if it’s little, do you have any advice on my comms strategy?” There is a time and place to provide feedback, but for sure it’s NEVER correct to start conversations from a place of disconnection.
Some additional notes on this:
- My perception of risk probability is also not perfect. If people disagree w/ my risk-assessment and I’m not sure, I need to take a chill pill.
- It has been brought to my attention that I also need another mode… call it Social Mode, where I don’t engage deeply, and just “keep things light”. But screw that, I have no interest in pleasantries.
- Just because I am right about a certain aspect of the risk profile, doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea for the individual to go through it. I once advised a friend to not take a course of action, and I was right, their initiative failed. But that failure was still impressive enough to propell them into a completely different lifestyle.
- IT IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO FIX EVERYTHING.
- As a corollary to the above, I need to be honest with myself and admit that I LIKE fixing things. I like being helpful. I will limit the psychoanalysis short of admitting that I need to help people to validate my existence, I’m also not Kwai from Kung Fu, “walking the earth”. I just like helping, and that’s ok… I just need to be more mindful of when it’s the right thing to do.
Thanks to Arti Kohli, without whom, I’d be a lot weirder.