Is Disruptive Empathy The Cure For Most Conflict? I Think So.

We’re spinning around the universe with blinders on.

Our daily lives are surrounded by other beings who inhabit the same planet as us. Yet, we often think the world revolves around us as if we’re somehow an important speck in the grander reality of the universe.

Well, we’re not.

We have the most impact in our daily lives, which is constantly consumed by other people’s motivations, fears, and anxieties.

It’s hard enough to keep track of our own, but we must learn that our life plays out with and through other people.

A beautiful life embodies empathy.

But what traps us in a negative cycle is our habitual passive aggression.

Passive aggression is toxic to any relationship.

As Luke Burgis beautifully lays out,

“A colleague sends me an email that seems curt or disrespectful, I respond in kind; my friend raises his voice in an argument, I raise mine back; and passive aggression spreads like wildfire, beyond two people and through an entire organizational culture.”

It all starts with some level of fear, anxiety, or anger, which is amplified through sameness.