Can you be an understanding person and still be assertive?

Can you find understanding and forgiveness?“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he su [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Can you find understanding and forgiveness? “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh I’m no master of gracefulness though and so this quote is making me think about a guy I’m having trouble forgiving. He’s a construction guy who we worked with last year. Despite great references, he botched everything for our project, lied about it, filed a [lien]( for work he didn’t do. He cost us a lot of time and money, and many times, made my blood boil. But his own suffering was right on the surface — both of his parents were in and out of the hospital. So maybe the suffering he put me through wasn’t as personal as it felt. That’s my example. How about you? Is there someone who you are having trouble forgiving? What suffering might they be going through? (Also, this quote also feels relevant to our divided world.) _ More on being an assertive person. I got a couple of notes from readers wanting to hear more about assertiveness. And first, I want to differentiate it from being domineering. Domineering is mindless, selfish, and careless control of other people. Assertiveness is clarity about your own needs and directness about getting them met. So, to go back to my troubled construction worker. Assertiveness was realizing he wasn’t going to do his job, firing him, and not paying for work that hadn’t been done. Understanding, which is how I understand that Thich Nhat Hanh quote, would have been not taking that experience personally. You can do both. More good quotes here: [61 Profound Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes On Life, Love and Happiness](. Who was Thich Nhat Hanh? That’s why he’s on my mind. Read this for more about who he was and what he meant to the world: [Thich Nhat Hanh Taught Us to Live In Midair]( by [Jude Ellison S. Doyle](. What drew me to Thich Nhat Hanh was the simplicity of his teaching, which mostly amounted to: If you are lost, stop running. Sit down, right where you are, and breathe. Experience the moment, without distracting yourself from it, and see what starts to emerge. Another reason a stopwatch is a good self-improvement tool. I think a stopwatch is useful for a lot more than just running. This is one example. From [Are You a Tidsoptimist?]( by [Michelle Loucadoux, MBA](. A [tidsoptimist]( is “a person who’s habitually late because they think they have more time than they do.” One solution: Time your activities. When I started timing my activities, I was so surprised at how wrong I was about how long I thought tasks would take. I thought emptying the dishwasher took 15 minutes. It took 3. Shower? I thought it would be at least 20 minutes. It was 11. Once you have timed your tasks three times, take the longest of the three and make your calculations and decisions from there. The pros and cons of listening to lectures at 2x speed. First, the case for listening at 2x from [Research Confirms You Can Still Learn While Watching or Listening at 2x Speed]( by [Scott H. Young](. “We presented participants with lecture videos at different speeds and tested immediate and delayed (1 week) comprehension. Results revealed minimal costs incurred by increasing video speed from 1x to 1.5x, or 2x speed, but performance declined beyond 2x speed. … increasing the speed of videos (up to 2x) may be an efficient strategy, especially if students use the time saved for additional studying or rewatching the videos…”  The case against 2x speed comes from me, although it’s not nearly that black and white. I perceive that people overestimate the value of facts and underestimate the value of understanding and assimilation. So when I hear people listening to lectures at 2x speed, I’m equating that to something similar to cliff notes — just a rapid consumption of surface-level knowledge. What I want people to consider is picking content that’s worth rereading, worth taking notes on, worth pausing mid-consumption to brainstorm about. Consider slow reading, slow listening, slow living. Basically, I want to remind people of the value of quality over quantity because we all tend to forget. __ Did anything in this issue resonate with you? Let me know by sending a response. Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.