Embracing Complexity in a World of Easy Answers

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In This Newsletter

• Embracing Complexity in a World of Easy Answers

• What Inspired Me This Week

• My Recent Content

Embracing Complexity in a World of Easy Answers

One of the most impactful changes I've made to my thinking in recent years, both personally and professionally, is developing the habit of pausing whenever something seems simple and obvious.

Professionally, when a project or problem appears straightforward, I pause to deliberately consider all the angles I might have missed: edge cases, alternative explanations, different approaches, potential timeline impacts, and more. This practice proves valuable whether planning new projects or investigating how to fix or improve something.

Personally, this pause has become even more crucial, especially in our era where certainty is considered strength. When I encounter information that triggers an immediate "obviously right" or "clearly wrong" reaction, I've trained myself to see this certainty as a warning sign rather than confirmation.

For example: You're scrolling through news about a controversial policy decision, and you can feel your blood pressure rise. You know this is wrong, something only an uninformed or malicious person would support. That feeling of righteous certainty is precisely when I now pause and think, "This is a sign I may not fully understand something."

Our brains love simple narratives and heuristics—they're efficient and emotionally satisfying. But simple explanations rarely capture complex realities. While the simplest explanation may be true when all facts are considered, the reality is that obtaining all relevant facts requires serious effort—far more than scrolling through social media news feeds can provide.

Just think about how many fields require years of dedicated study to master. Now consider that political, social, and economic issues intertwine dozens of such complex domains. Can any of us truly claim comprehensive understanding of healthcare policy, international relations, or climate science after reading a few articles? Can we understand the perspectives of those living completely different lives from us, in another part of the world, in radically different socioeconomic and cultural environments?

To be clear, this isn't about compromising on values. Rather, it's about approaching complex issues with intellectual honesty and humility.

In practice, this mindset means:

• Treating strong emotional reactions as invitations to learn, not confirmation you're right

• Seeking out thoughtful voices who disagree with you and listening with genuine curiosity

• Asking yourself: "What would have to be true about someone's experiences for their view to make sense to them?"

• Practicing thinking (and saying) "I need to think more about this" before cementing your position

The real test comes when you can articulate an opposing viewpoint so fairly that someone holding that view would say, "Yes, that's what I believe." If your explanation still includes "they're just stupid/evil/brainwashed," you haven't done the work. You're being lazy.

Even thinking strategically, if we don't understand why an opposing side believes what they do, we cannot effectively do anything about it. The most passionate advocates for change are sometimes the least effective precisely because their deep conviction makes it harder to understand the opposition's perspective.

“The pause” isn't about diminishing legitimate fears or compromising on core values—it's about ensuring our responses are grounded in the fullest possible understanding of what we're facing. This remains true even on issues with serious real-world consequences; understanding different perspectives doesn't mean abandoning your principles, but rather equipping yourself to defend them more effectively.

In the book The Worm at the Core, they share how “…in the classic 1941 horror film The Wolf Man, Sir John Talbot, the Wolf Man’s father, describes two diverging approaches to life:

The world needs more people willing to sit with uncertainty long enough to discover deeper truths—even uncomfortable ones. This path may be harder, but it leads to both better outcomes and greater inner peace.

What issue might you benefit from pausing to reconsider today?

What Inspired Me This Week

Two books on death:

Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully 

I LOVED this book. Written by a hospice nurse, it covers the biological process of death, common medical interventions at end of life, how to prepare for your death or a loved one's, and many beautiful stories of love and peace in life's final chapter. I teared up more than once, and can honestly say I have much less fear about what the dying process will be like, both for myself and others.

The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life

This book is much more academic, and is basically an accessible introduction to the concepts Ernest Becker proposed in his 1970s book The Denial of Death. The book discusses Terror Management Theory, and how our awareness of and discomfort with our mortality shapes everything from social structures to cultural values, religious beliefs, and even our everyday decisions. The authors provide compelling research demonstrating how death anxiety influences human behavior, often unconsciously, driving us to seek meaning, legacy, and symbolic immortality.

My Recent Content

Last-Minute Tech Interview Prep: A 7-Day Emergency Plan That Actually Works

• YouTube video

• Medium blog

(BTW, if you see the above and are thinking to yourself how nice it would be to be worried about prepping for an interview vs. trying to GET an interview, I’ll have a video in a few weeks about creative strategies to get noticed by hiring managers).

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