Transcript
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another DailyJim. Today is Monday, January 8th, 2024. I am going to talk about the University of Michigan team winning the national championship in college football today. College American football for those non American listeners. And one mantra that Michigan has had throughout the year apparently started once their uh head coach was suspended for a sign stealing thing was uh Michigan versus everybody. Now, this is a partnership that they did with a clothing line in Detroit called Detroit versus everybody and something has rubbed me the wrong way, meaning something has frustrated me about that phrase for a long time. And I think sometimes it can motivate a team to win the national championship believing that other people are either actively against us or don't care about us. I think the versus kind of gives the actively against us mentality. Um But I wonder if that's not the textbook example of us versus them. The Michigan versus everybody is literally us versus them. And how does such an attitude lead to more division in society? And I think some of us will say, oh, we, we're tired of the division. We don't want the division, but then we continue to believe that other people are against us. And I think that attitude, that belief can further entrench. Um, if I think somebody is against me, why would I be for them? Why would I be with them? If I think they're actively against me, it would be stupid of me to be with somebody if they're against me. But are they necessarily against me? I was in a conversation on Twitter earlier today where people were talking about how, um, they said that they didn't think that they mattered. And I stumbled on an article in psychology today talking about suicide. And it actually brought up this idea of mattering or anti mattering. And what they've seen in some of the research is that when we think that we don't matter to other people, we tend to be more suicidal. Now, it's not saying it wasn't ca they just found a correlation. They did an analysis of, I think a suicide watch forum or whatnot. And in 70% of the postings, there was something about talking about how these people didn't think that they mattered.
And so I think there can be a connection or to me there seems like a connection into thinking that people don't care about us or people actively are out to get to get to get us.
And I think there can be huge impacts on our own personal health. And my suggestion to the people on Twitter is what I try to do is I try to imagine how the person is feeling because if I think somebody is out to get me. Often, I can get so locked into that story. Unless I go. Ok, how do I imagine that they might be feeling? OK, maybe they feel angry at what I did. Maybe they feel frustrated with uh with something that I believed. Maybe they feel grateful that I got hurt. Maybe they feel proud that they did something that hurt me. I, when I start saying some of those things, they feel a little uncomfortable just because I don't necessarily believe them. Um Do people really feel proud when they hurt somebody else? Maybe? But if I take that to the next level and I go, OK, how do I imagine they feel when they think about um interacting with their dog? Grateful? How do I imagine they feel when they think about um calling their, their parent on the phone? Scared? Maybe. How do I imagine they might feel when they think about death. Terrified. How do I imagine they might feel when they think about, uh, going back to school, maybe excited. And so when I look at these things, I start to see that they're a human being that's feeling a lot of different things and maybe they're actively out to get me. But, you know, how do, how do I, yeah, I think me struggling through this. Um, I think a lot of times, uh we can get so locked into the certainty that these people are out to get us so that these people don't care about us. That we don't even realize that most of the times people have so many things going on in their lives and if they are quote out to get us, it's reactionary. Well, he doesn't care about me. So I'm not going to care about him or, well, they're trying to get me. They're, they're going against me. Well, then I'm gonna go against him. It's almost like I would call it almost like emotional followership or emotional following, not emotional leading. And that would be a conversation for another day, but I just wanted to talk about it a little bit because I think so many of us, especially as we go into different political, uh, seasons and campaigns can get locked into this attitude that other people that people are in quote unquote, the other group don't care about us or they're actively trying to hurt us. And I think a lot of times that's not necessarily the case. Music.
This out and I'll go back to that point. Um Yeah, I think sometimes we can get so certain that other people are out to get us that other people don't care about us, that we miss the signs that are telling us. There's a chance they do care about us. There's a chance that what they're doing is actually trying to help us. It's not trying to hurt us or there's a chance that what they're doing, maybe they don't like the behavior that we did, but that doesn't mean they don't care about us as a human. Maybe what we did made them feel hurt or angry. But that was one thing that we did out of the hundreds of things that we do for them and they like the other hundreds of things, those other hundreds of things make them feel grateful or excited to be near us or proud or, or just content and safe and all these different things. So I don't think it always me, I just want to challenge the certainty that we have around people not caring about us or actively trying to hurt us because I, I think it's a little more complex most of the time anyways. That's long enough for today and I look forward to talking to you soon. Bye.
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