Tag: Only One Safe

Choice-Based Relationships

Choice-Based Relationships

Relationships and Control

We’ve talked in the past about how control is an illusion – we can’t control the world around us, and all we really have are the choices we make.

We’ve also talked about how manipulating people only works when you’re the smartest person in the room.

One of the things that’s been a struggle for both of us, individually and as friends, is how do we make sure people will stick around? We all, at our core, don’t want to be alone. We want to be known, and appreciated, and maybe truly loved, but that…sure seems like a lot to ask. Most of us only manage to shoot for being a little bit known and sort of vaguely liked. And that’s actually pretty great, if it happens.

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Trust: What is?

Trust: What is?

Fun fact – the Building Reliability blog post was originally called “Building Trust.” It was old content – some day we’ll tell the story of everything that happened between when it was originally published and when we published it here, but suffice it to say that a lot changed okay.

Because of what changed, Laine was immediately and thoroughly triggered by defining trust in some part as “doing what people expect of you.” Some number of arguments later, we agreed that what’s described in that post is reliability – which is in fact different from trust. And…then we started trying to define and explain trust. Turns out, it really isn’t easy. After a lot of paying attention to where we stumble in trusting other people (spoiler alert: we’re both awful at it, actually…), this post was born. Finally.

We’re going to explain in more detail, but here is the basic definition:

Trust: believing that the other person loves you enough to figure it out – whatever it is.

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Puppet Mastery, Manipulation, and Control

Puppet Mastery, Manipulation, and Control

“It works as long as you’re the smartest, but then the curtain comes back. Nobody likes being manipulated.”

People hate that word, “manipulation.” As a rule, they don’t hate the concept unless they’re on the receiving end of it, and even then sometimes they appear to prefer it to dealing with…well, reality.

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Ummm…I have a question…actually I have about 50.

Ummm…I have a question…actually I have about 50.

Being a person is hard.

This is just science. The only way it’s easy is if: a) you’re lying to yourself, or b) you aren’t paying a lot of attention to yourself or the world around you. People are broken, but we also have God in us, and the conflict between Team Damaged and Team Divine means that… being a person is hard.

The conflict between Team Damaged and Team Divine means that… being a person is hard.

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