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Whenever something goes wrong, our first instinct is to find fault. To find who or what caused the situation we’re in.

We’re so quick to criticize, we don’t stop and think for a second. Rarely, if ever, we put ourselves into other people’s shoes. And when we do, it’s way too late to take back whatever harsh words we said.

Expecting too much of others, thinking their normal is our normal, is what fuels this. We expect people to know what we know, feel what we feel, and do what we do when given similar circumstances.

But that’s rarely the case. Everyone’s problems, experiences, and values are different. Their motivations and reactions are different.

Next time when you’re about to bite one’s head off, give yourself a few moments to think it through. Switch places. Try to understand where they are coming from. Why they do what they do. Maybe there’s a good reason.

Even though I love writing, I suck at it. Big time. I find it incredibly difficult to write about stuff, and when some tiny idea pops in my mind, I fail to express it. I’m like a 2-year-old struggling to speak.

But as with everything else, with practice, writing can get better – it can be learned. At least I hope so.

Since writing is too difficult for me, I spend my time changing and re-changing my WordPress theme. Yes, that’s just procrastinating. Running away from the keyboard. But I’m also right.

I’ve spent countless hours looking for something to suit my style. And even if I don’t have a style yet, one thing I’m sure is I won’t be writing 1000-word posts. I like short reads. I don’t want to spend more than 5 minutes reading something.

All the themes I could find, including, and especially the premium ones, follow the same style. The full-screen slider on the homepage, the half-screen banners on single pages, and paragraphs stretching on way more space than they need to.

I’d love a theme that breaks the pattern. A theme that looks and feels like a notebook, like a diary. Something personal, where I can write short, personal, silly thoughts on.

The second our eyes open for the first time, we start watching and analyzing the people around us. We start doing what they are doing. We’re smiling, laughing, and eventually walking.

We learn everything from them.

But somehow later in life, I don’t know the exact moment, following others, doing what they are doing, asking for advice, becomes something we are ashamed of. Maybe it’s because we should know better by now. Or because people might think we’re stupid. Or that we don’t have our own opinions.

That’s stupid. We can’t be good at everything. Not before doing what other people did and certainly not before listening to their findings. And no. Sharing the very same opinions with tens of other people is not “copying” or being unopinionated.

Like it or not, we’re pretty much like an open-source project. Everyone you follow, listen, or read, contributes to your development as a professional and as a human being.

Get better at admitting that. Get better at following people.
They don’t know it all, but they might know more, or better than you.

There’s this idea of collaborative intelligence saying that working closely and putting our minds together makes it easier to achieve goals and objectives. So it’s something we want more of.

You’d think removing the walls and reducing the physical distance between people would raise their level of interaction, leading to an increase in collaborative intelligence and productivity.

Well…nope. Actually, the opposite happens. According to a recent study. the volume of face-to-face interactions drops with about 70% and most of our interactions shift to email and IM.

Removing physical barriers between two, three, or four people works. But it doesn’t scale. It doesn’t work when ten, fifteen, or more people are involved.

Looking at my day-to-day office interactions, most of them are about asking or giving help. Asking for help makes us feel vulnerable. It’s hard enough to do it in front of one person – let alone with fifteen other people, watching and hearing every stupid thing you say.

The study can be found here.

I read, watch and listen every day.
I have trouble remembering things – it’s time to write stuff down.