Something I need to actually fix in myself. When someone drops a ball, my first read is that it's personal. Bad vibes, disrespect, a little attack. It almost never is.
Most of the time it's just incompetence. They're not coming at me, they're just not good at the thing, or they're underwater. No intent behind it at all. And reading malice into plain mediocrity costs me more than the dropped ball ever did. It sours the relationship and burns the energy I'd need to just fix the thing.
So the new default is to assume incompetence before malice. It's usually what's actually happening. And even when I can't tell, it's the more useful thing to believe.
— Simon