advice
The part that goes alone
This post stems from my recent conversations with a few people I know and care about who are having a very hard time of things these days.
Each of us have our own mountains to climb, our own monsters under the bed. Mostly, it’s a different battle for all of us. But there’s a common thread. I notice it while I’m trying to give advice to one person, while trying like hell just to get in touch with another, and while trying to stay as quiet as I can while the heart of a third breaks a little more every day:
However close we are to someone, there’s always a part of them we can’t help.
That part always, always goes alone into whatever minor annoyance, mundane problem or massive tragedy we face. It’s the part no one can follow, carry or comfort. Those outside your mind can’t know that part of you, and you can’t know it in them. But we all have it.
And we have to treat it differently from the other parts, the bits of someone we can reach, the bits that need encouragement or a listener or someone sitting next to them in mutually acceptable and comfortable silence.
The part that goes alone can only be recognized and respected, and that’s really, really difficult to accept when all you want to do is help someone.
Happiness and sadness are equal parts chemicals and circumstances, but understanding someone and making them feel understood, even when that means accepting you can’t completely relieve them of their burdens, is an art worth pursuing.
Is the job worthy of you?
The link is aimed at software developers but it’s applicable to anyone looking for a new job. I am at my current employer as much because it answered my questions satisfactorily as because I answered its questions satisfactorily.
Why You Need Several Versions of Your Resume
Why You Need Several Versions of Your Resume
Absolutely necessary.
Just like cover letters, every resume you send should be tailored to the recipient, highlighting the experience you have that’s most relevant to that company and integrating some basic research on the employer.
If you’re sending the same resume with every job application you’re doing it wrong.
What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology
What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology
Andreesen Horowitz co-founder and career CEO/investor Ben Horowitz offers some great advice in this 2011 post at his personal blog.
The best part about it is that, while it’s aimed at aspiring CEOs and entrepreneurs, it really applies to any major life project.
Here is one piece of advice from Horowitz that stuck out to me:
The first problem is that everybody learns to be a CEO by being a CEO.
The best way and, in many cases, the only way, to truly learn anything is to do it, cataloging and routing around or mitigating damage from your mistakes as you go forward.
And another:
If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself.
Our emotional responses can be helpful, but there are many decisions which it is inappropriate to base solely on emotion. We need to learn when and how to make emotion secondary to logic, or at least find a Spock-like middle ground.
It’s definitely worth a read.