There will come a time when you are working with a friend, a colleague, or a stranger on how to live THPL. Initially they will show a lot of interest in THPL, its elements, tactics, lifestyle, lessons, methods and all. And time will pass and their follow through will fade and you will jump in to help. As hard as you try, with examples, encouragement, support, coaching etc. their interest in THPL still diminishes and sadly they will pull out of THPL community. At this moment, it is natural to wonder if you could have done anything differently to help the person stay connected to THPL. More likely than not, though, it was nothing you did or did not do. The reality is that there is most likely a deeper, or not so obvious issue, that caused the outcome to be what it was.
A perfect example of this relates to the success of students in school. We might be tempted to blame a student directly for their lack of motivation to attend school. We might think that the student is just a bad kid. In fact what we know is that the best indicator of student success is the Mothers’ level of education. Which translates directly into support of the student throughout their life. The question then might be – is their lack of success related to the student’s familial situation – and it could well be or at least be a significant contributor. Thus it is only by seeking to understand that you can adequately draw conclusion from the outcome. Standing in judgment only increases the probability that you could have made a less than informed assessment of the situation.
So what to take from all of this? There is often a real reason for our behavior, it is not always obvious on the surface what the reason is, but by digging deeper, by looking at the data, by seeking to understand you can most likely find the issue, or close enough to the issue, to be able to orient your response so that it is appropriate to the root cause. With this level of insight we improve the possibility that one, or both of us, will be able to address the issue satisfactorily and productively to produce a good outcome, for sure :-)
Loving life, when seeking to understand
Ciao
Joe