A recent example from my own life: “It bugs me that my brother doesn’t return my texts or emails.” Why? “Because it feels like he doesn’t give a shit about me.” Why does this seem true? “Because if he wanted to have a relationship with me, he would take ten seconds out of his day to interact with me.” Why does his lack of relationship with you feel like a failure? “Because we’re brothers; we’re supposed to have a good relationship!” Two things are operating here: a value that I hold dear, and a metric that I use to assess progress toward that value. My value: brothers are supposed to have a
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