Back to that empathy thing I was talking about the other day. The real trap with having advanced empathy is that you care about everything. You consider all the angles all of the time to make sure you’re doing right by the world at large. Sounds great, right? Everyone is caring about everyone.

But the issue is that, as much as I’d love to think that (deep down) we are all the same in that way, we aren’t. The western world is kind of on fire right now and there’s a percentage of the population cheering it on because they don’t care who gets hurt, sick, killed, or dies as long as America’s budget deficit shrinks.

If that’s too vague an accusation to make my point, I will make it a tad more personal to illustrate the point. At work recently it has become apparent that my competence is being used against me.

Someone’s on vacation for a week and you need me to cover? Oh, okay I guess. There’s a volunteer committee you’d like me to be a part of? A “stretch assignment” doing someone else’s work to get me even more than experience doing the thing that I’ve been doing since 2020 that I have effectively mastered? Oh, that stretch assignment that I already completed is being handled by someone else and I can pass the reins to them to do… What exactly? But ok sure.

I find myself doing more than most and more than I need to with the expectation that it’s the same as everyone is doing. And it isn’t. I know that it isn’t. Just because I am great at my job doesn’t mean that I should have more job than everyone else.

So, I am simplifying some things. I let boss person at work know that I am not up to doing any stretch assignments anymore. I want to focus on my health and basically every condition I have is impacted by stress so… Gotta cut things where I can to manage my health.

I am not sure how it’s gonna go over. I guess I will find out on Monday.