Don’t Be Quick to Cancel the People Who Care
Social intelligence is learned. Hold people accountable — but know when to give them grace.
One of my life’s most benevolent twists of fate came back in 2012, when a group of middle-aged ladies chatting outside a holistic wellness spa in Shanghai randomly urged me to join the local crisis line as a volunteer. I’d arrived in China with zero thought of doing mental health work, but I took their advice — and learned things that have changed my life and relationships for the better ever since.
One lesson from my crisis counseling days comes to mind especially often in our quick-to-anger world. Like when I see people lashing out at well-intentioned others, or grumbling about the fact that total strangers don’t automatically know how to attend to their unique needs, or (just as bad) berating themselves for not having figured out the ‘right’ way to support someone in a sensitive moment. Believe it or not, all these scenarios remind me of a training module on… grief. My trainers once warned us:
People say and do absolutely *stupid* things in the face of others’ grief.
Of course, they phrased this much more elegantly in the moment than I am now, but the sentiment still stands, and it’s…
