Right and WrongFiguring out the difference between “good” and “bad” is an integral and ever evolving aspect of life.
Figuring out the difference between “good” and “bad” is an integral and ever evolving aspect of life.
As kids, we are introduced to this concept in superhero films — with the good guys being the superheroes and the bad guys the villains. This is our first lesson in “right” and “wrong.”
In school, we are introduced to the idea of grades. For an input, say homework, we receive an output, say a grade.
Over a long period of time, we are conditioned to be happy when we get an A and sad when we get an F.
These are examples of validation that we get while growing up. But when we are young, we rarely have the confidence/ability to question the validation.
We, at least I, rarely ask what an A means. We rarely ask if what Superman is doing actually good for the world.
As we get older, and our problems become increasingly complex, choosing between “right” and “wrong” becomes really hard.
Why is it so hard?
a) There is often no universally accepted “right” and “wrong” way of doing things. In fact, most things are this way.
In business, for example, there are rarely right answers. There are only least wrong answers.
The best business people can generally sift out bad answers for the best ones — but this is really hard. Why? Because there are so many factors involved — like timescale or goals or impact — that choosing the best one is completely context dependent.
CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING.
This is important, and really relevant to me lately.
Why?
I keep thinking about helping other people and finding the “right” way to do it. I am realizing that advice giving is completely context dependent and blanket advice is honestly often garbage.
How do I balance the desire to help others with avoiding spammy nonsensical, contextless jargon? And do that at scale?
I do not have the “right” answer as of yet. I just want to be sure to be realizing that the “right” and “wrong” types of advice are very important to distinguish and understand between — I do not want to mess that up.
Originally published at gonen.blog.
By jordangonen on August 15, 2017.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.