on caring
Last weekend, a dear friend became sick. It escalated from initially not feeling well to a high burning fever. I went to see my friend, thinking that I’ll just show up and everything will be better.
I even brought an orange, for Vitamin C’s sake.
In hindsight, that was real cute. I even had a pun to go with it: “orange you glad we’re here together?”.
In hindsight, there was also much more I could’ve done to care for someone who was sick.
I realized that while well-versed in providing emotional support, I was a bit rusty in providing physical support. As a child, I used to catch colds easily and my parents would alternate between shifts in the hospital when symptoms got worse. They would spoon-feed me porridge, change the cold washcloth on my head at set intervals, etc. For some reason, that all disappeared from my mind when I wasn’t the sick person in question.
Small yet meaningful actions didn’t register for me.
Adjusting pillows? Tucking people in? I’ve been on the receiving side of things and didn’t even notice. This experience has made more aware of the spectrum of caring, especially the thoughtful and sometimes subtle ways that someone can convey it.
It also makes me appreciate all the times that those close to me has taken care of me, both emotionally and physically. A thousand thank yous for making it so comfortable for me that there was nothing additional that I wanted while not feeling well. I couldn’t point out things that needed to be improved on and at the same time, didn’t realize I was being taken care of so thoroughly. It’s similar to good design — so user intuitive that you don’t even notice.
Now I want to be more aware and improve. Especially with what happened with my friend, it has gotten me to think: How do I make sure it doesn’t happen again? Or more accurately, with something I don’t have much experience in, how do I come up with ideas so that I can actively do my best (and not merely spectate)?
After some introspection and conversations with friends, I’ve crystallized three ways of thinking that may help the future me:
- Pre-mortem thinking from the Less Wrong community
Similar to the concept of post-mortem in business where you identify what went wrong after the fact, pre-mortem is using visualization to imagine the future and what could go wrong. Less Wrong goes into more detail in the traveling through time to increase your effectiveness post.
“ Successful time travel is all about bringing our past, present, and future selves into a cooperative alignment.”
I really like the idea of mentally traveling through time, because the future isn’t difficult for me to imagine, and I’m self-aware enough to know past habits and areas of weaknesses. Placing myself in that point in time where I just found out my friend became sick and doing the pre-mortem exercise before anything occurred, I can imagine myself not knowing what to do amidst the possibilities of so many things to do. Faced with the paradox of choice, I would probably to do nothing or a minimal amount to play it safe. Which is exactly what happened.
2. Thinking of the person as some form of my younger brother
When I think of the baby brother, all insecurities go out and are replaced by the most nurturing, caring and loving feelings in the world. It’s the raw and authentic me.
I automatically think about making chicken noodle soup, buying a whole bunch of medicine just in case, and bringing fuzzy blankets. I empathize more with the pain and think of ways I can help to relieve it.
When I think of someone as family, I’m also filled with boundless patience and unconditional love. I become more curious about their perspectives and where they are coming from. I listen and ask questions more.
This shifting of the mindset would be helpful in unfamiliar situations, especially it calls for putting someone before myself.
3. Process-based thinking instead of result-focused thinking
One relatable example that highlights the above differences is cooking. When prioritizing the end result, cooking can be intimidating, in that every step you’re feeling anxious over the looming thought: “What if it doesn’t taste good?”.
When thinking about it as an experience of creating and making food together, cooking becomes a lot more low stakes and less pressure (pun intended). You can savor each other’s presence more and anticipate excitedly for the co-creation, with no expectations. The food is only a mere byproduct of sharing and enjoying time together.
There are many steps to get to a destination — and again, paradox of choice. As a mind exercise, when I’m only focused on the end result, a lot of my thinking turns into passive and paralyzing wishful thing: I wish my friend gets better soon, I don’t know what to do, the fever is never going to go away, etc. Compare that to focusing on the journey, questions naturally comes up, like: What are the steps I can take to help my friend feel better right now?
These strategies can be used together or separately, depending on what you’re looking for. In some situations, sidestepping potential mistakes may be more important, in others, empathy and presentness may be of higher value.
Calibrating takes practice :)
