My dad, can see the worst in everyone. He carefully thinks through the worst possible motivation for each person’s actions, and then deduces the worst possible judgement. He sees intentionality and malice and hurt in almost every person’s deeds. In fact I spend a great deal of mental energy, thinking through all the ways that a person’s actions and deeds could simply be the result of a mistake or misunderstanding or a lack of appropriate information, etc etc. But my dad can find villainous intentions in arguably everyone. Keeping myself out of that trap is plenty taxing as well!
The real world problem this creates for me, is that it can easily be contagious, where I start to attribute the worst possible thoughts toward each person that I meet and interact with around the world. I don’t want to move through life like this, like I did in the past. So I publicly thank my dad, for forcing me to “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” or “don’t assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding” and “you have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.” All of these quotes are from wikipedia about Hanlon’s razor.
Thinking criminal thoughts about each person you encounter in life is all too easy as my dad proves. Stopping that process once it begins takes monumental effort as I discovered. This has application to other than personal interactions with people as well - it can apply to organizations too. After 23 years of what felt like wrestling and fighting with my previous parent organization, I finally left, and changed gears. I should have done it far sooner! However, in the almost nine years since I did leave, I have come to the conclusion that there was little malice at play. Big organizations are simply suspect to neglect and misunderstanding. On both sides! Each action fostered more misunderstanding, and soon we came to an impasse. But it did not have to be that way. Back then I had far too much of my dad in me, and far too little generosity in my heart to give the benefit of the doubt.
Do you find yourself caught in a conspiracy theory or devil theory? What steps do you need to take, to bring back a generosity of spirit that will allow you to work Hanlon’s razor to your benefit?
