In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey emphasized "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood."
So I want to hear from you.
No, I need to hear from you, because I want to understand.
This week wrecked me.
The videos of Iryna Zarutska murdered on public transporation.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk.
People posting videos celebrating Charlie's death.
To be clear, the US has had it's fair share of national tragedies, ranging from OKC bombing, to mass school shootings, to 9/11. Each of these impact me to this day.
But this week? This week hit me on a different level. And I wasn’t even a Charlie Kirk fan or listener. At best I had watched maybe 10 videos of his schtick.
I have so many emotions to process and thoughts to share, but I just can't yet. It's all still raw and weird and crazy and disheartening. I know I should just sweep it under the rug and move on, but I just can’t.
So I want to hear from you.
Do you even know what I'm talking about?
Do you have an opinion one way or another?
Were you also affected like me?
I promise the tone and nature of this newsletter will go back to the normal topics I usually discuss and cover. But for just this moment, I'm hurting. And I need to hear different perspectives to see if I'm the only one.
Thank you.
If you didn't have empathy for people going through these tragedies (Charlie Kirk himself, his family, and so on) or didn't feel pain for our society's moral degradation, you'd be a psychopath.
But at the same time, we are not built to process and absorb every tragedy that happens around the world. Information travels fast, and bad news travels even faster. Regretfully, our world is filled with bad news, and technology brings it right to our door.
A close relative went through a stage in their life where consuming social media (Twitter in particular) ended up wearing them down. Most of that information didn't serve any purpose: it just painted an angry and depressing view of the world. The solution was to change their information consumption habits so that, while staying informed, they didn't feel so bleak.
Some things we can't ignore. I live on the other hemisphere, and I'm still shocked by this news. And, like you said, it's not easy to sweep it under the rug. But if tragedies find us with our emotional batteries drained from consuming negative content all the time, it's even worse.
My personal choice is to not use social networks and to refrain from watching the news. I actively choose to investigate topics that are relevant to me, taking care not to create an echo chamber in the process. I found huge relief in that change of habit a while ago, and I plan to keep doing it. Just as diet affects our body, the information we allow in also affects our mind.
I think we’ve all been reminded of how fragile and fleeting life can be, and of our need to fully live it.