The support paradox.

[Fennesz]

My main motivation is to help others. I am by no means a sage, and there are many things I don't know, but I have developed some good rules of thumb for life, and feel pretty happy with where I'm at. But helping other people in life, I have found, is often quite difficult.

 

In general we face two broad categories of problems in life. There are the problems that are well defined, they have clear parameters and definite solutions. An example of this is a question like "How do I change the oil on my car?", or even simpler: "What is the sum of all the internal angles on a euclidian triangle?". There is an answer to it, we know what is meant by the question. And usually there is only one answer. I can guide you very specifically in finding the answer to both those questions. You don't typically see questions and answers like these in the self-help literature.

 

Unfortunately most problems in the world are poorly defined problems. These are the questions that you do see a lot in self-help. "How do I become a better person?", "How do I go on a good date?". These questions are interesting, because they are actually really complicated and have thousands if not millions of different answers. And because they have so many answers, everyone you ask seem to have an answer to them. "Be nice, but not too nice", or "Go to the gym", they'll say.

For a poorly defined problem you almost always have to ask the question: "What does that mean to you?". It is not clear what becoming a better person means necessarily, and the work that is needed is often very individual. So how do you help someone asking poorly defined questions? And how can they best help themselves?

[Pedro M]

A good idea is to try to improve your communication skills. If you're a good communicator, you'll improve your ability to understand and express yourself, and you'll understand other people's problems more quickly and clearly, even if they express themselves poorly. Leo helps so many people precisely because he's a good communicator. If he had all these insights but didn't know how to express what happened, the impact of actualized.org would be much smaller. Even in things related to physical training, the best teachers are not necessarily the strongest, but rather those who communicate best.