Are you past feeling?

How is hiring a teacher different than hiring a president?

It’s recruiting season at our school right now so I’ve got hiring on the mind.

So, let me give you a hiring scenario:

---

You have a candidate with strong enough skills to make them a finalist. During the hiring process you find out they’ve been convicted of several felonies. The candidate also has faced serious sexual abuse allegations. As you continue your reference checks, you find this candidate has publicly made a number of hyper sexual comments about women alongside a growing list of degrading remarks about a variety of different ethnic groups.

---

Would you hire this person?

I’m gonna make an assumption (which I know you’re not supposed to do) and say you chose not to hire this candidate.

The question is—why?

You probably wouldn’t put someone with this particular background in a classroom with kids.

In choosing who we want to spend time with our kids, we prioritize qualities like trust and character. But what about when we choose leaders, whose influence is even broader?

We just put someone with this particular background mentioned above in the most powerful position in the world earlier this week in the US.

Wait!

Before you close this tab because you don’t want to read another election piece complaining about the candidates, the process, or the results. This isn’t actually about the election.

The election just happens to be a timely way to highlight something I’ve been reflecting on this week.

Are you past feeling?

Why this question?

Well, because of this—”Triumph of the Cynics” by McKay Coppins.

The premise of the article is that Donald Trump’s behavior has been so publicised for so long that we are no longer as sensitive to his behavior as we once were.

We’re past feeling.

Our eyes glaze over when we hear about another allegation or we shrug our shoulders and make comments like, “well yeah, I’m not surprised he said that, that’s just him.”

So let’s revisit our example. Why didn’t you hire the teacher?

One reason you might not have hired a teacher with that background is that the interaction with that specific person was new. You didn’t have a lot of previous interactions with them before the hiring process unfolded. And in this instance the information was startling and felt unprecedented. Hire a teacher who is a criminal with a long list of character flaws and put them in a classroom with kids? Never.

Politics is different. We have dozens of high profile examples of politicians whose behaviors have subtly desensitized us over time to a point where we say things like, “I’m not choosing them because they’re a good person, I just need them to fix the economy.”

So why does this question about our degree of sensitivity even matter?

“It’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate.”

Jocko WiIlink

Because when we are past feeling, we begin to tolerate things we might not have previously.

And, as we tolerate more, our own behaviors begin to shift as well.

To be honest, that’s what I’ve been thinking about most in relation to this question.

What areas in my life am I past feeling?

Does it matter?

If I am desensitized to certain behaviors in others how does that change my ability to empathize?

This is the one I worry about most.

If I shrug my shoulders when I hear unkind comments will I slowly lose my ability to stand up for the person on the receiving end of that unkindness?

And if I model that lack of feeling for my kids, what does that mean for my grandkids?

So, how do we start to regain and protect that sensitivity? Here are a couple of little things that came to mind.

• Pause and Reflect Regularly: Build moments into your day to ask yourself if there’s anything you’re starting to overlook that might deserve more attention. It could be a behavior, a comment, or even a headline you’re tempted to brush off. Reflecting regularly helps keep us from ignoring red flags.

• Stay Curious and Question Assumptions: When we feel tempted to say, ‘That’s just the way it is,’ or ‘It doesn’t matter,’ stop to ask, Is this something I would have been concerned about before? If so, explore why you’re no longer paying attention to it.

• Commit to Calling Out Small Behaviors: When we see minor actions that feel wrong, we often avoid confronting them. Yet, it’s these small moments that define what we tolerate over time. Committing to speaking up on smaller issues helps us stay connected to what we value.

If you made it this far, some of you might be thinking—geez, this guy is just hanging out on his moral high horse, pointing fingers, and oversimplifying the complexity of certain things.

I get it. It’s not always a simple decision. Life, politics, and people are complicated, and we all make trade-offs. This week’s question isn’t about judging others’ choices, but about ensuring we’re aware of the standards we set for ourselves and our communities. We each face situations where we have to decide what we will or won’t tolerate. The goal here is not to look down on others’ decisions, but to remind ourselves to stay mindful about our own.

How do we do that?

ASK. QUESTIONS.

So, what resonated this week? And, what do you think I got completely wrong? I’m open to the fact that I might be really off or that there are many other perspectives to a topic like this. Let me know!

Keep Asking,

Kyle