Oxford Dictionary just named “rage bait” its Word of the Year for 2025, which feels about right for a time when outrage has become the internet’s favorite currency.

The good news is the fact that we even have a term for it means we’re catching on. Those posts designed to make you furious and the takes so bad they seem almost engineered to provoke? It turns out they are engineered. The business model is simple: anger drives clicks, clicks drive revenue, and suddenly everyone’s competing to be the most infuriating voice in your feed.

Recognizing you’re being manipulated is only half the battle. The other half is deciding what you’re going to do about it. Put differently, pattern recognition is one thing. Changing that pattern is another.

The reality is we have more agency than we think. The real question isn’t just how to avoid rage bait. If you’re going to scroll, it’s what you choose to click on instead.

Awe Bait: The Antidote to Smallness

Rage bait makes everything feel urgent and personal. Awe bait does the opposite; it puts things in perspective.

Awe is what we experience when we encounter something vast that transcends our current understanding. It might be images from the James Webb telescope, time-lapse videos of natural phenomena, or stories of kindness. Research shows that experiencing awe reduces inflammation, increases generosity, and makes us feel more connected to others.

What makes awe particularly powerful is that it temporarily quiets the default mode network—the part of our brain responsible for self-focused thinking and rumination. When you’re watching storm clouds gather over the Grand Canyon or learning about the scale of the universe, you’re not thinking about that infuriating tweet or the person who cut you off in traffic.

Seek out content that reminds you the world is bigger, stranger, and more magnificent than your newsfeed suggests. Subscribe to channels featuring deep-sea exploration, astrophysics, or documentaries about ancient civilizations. Let yourself be regularly reminded of your place in something larger.

Beauty Bait: Rose Tint Your Attention

While rage bait hijacks our threat detection system, beauty bait engages an entirely different neural pathway—one that actually makes us feel better. When we encounter something genuinely beautiful, whether it’s an unexpected architectural detail, a perfectly composed photograph, or an elegant mathematical proof, our brains release dopamine without the cortisol spike that comes with outrage.

Beauty bait isn’t about escapism. It’s about refocusing our attention on what enriches rather than depletes us. Follow accounts that showcase design, nature photography, or art history. Seek out Instagram feeds of museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from botanical gardens, and from designers or architects. These aren’t guilty pleasures; they’re deliberate choices to feed your mind something nourishing.

The key is intention. You’re not passively consuming; you’re actively curating an environment that elevates rather than agitates.

Delight Bait: The Power of the Unexpected

Delight bait catches you off guard in the best possible way. It’s the video of the octopus changing colors in real time, the golden retriever cozying up to a newborn, the perfectly timed comedic moment, the child’s genuine reaction to seeing snow for the first time, the cleverly engineered solution to an everyday problem.

Unlike rage bait, which confirms our worst suspicions about the world, delight bait surprises us with evidence that life can be funny, clever, and unexpectedly wonderful. It activates our reward system without exploitation.

The magic of delight is that it’s incompatible with cynicism. You can’t simultaneously feel delighted and jaded. Delight breaks through our defensive posturing and reminds us that not everything has to be a battle.

Look for content creators who celebrate human ingenuity, capture moments of spontaneous joy, or showcase the absurd and whimsical. The account that documents interesting doors around the world. The one that shares satisfying engineering solutions. The feed dedicated to dogs experiencing things for the first time, or to ponies galloping toward bedtime.

@bobandtoffy

Bedtime Race 🐎💚 #bedtimerace

♬ original sound – BOB, TOFFY AND BAMBI

If you consistently click on rage bait, you’ll only see more of it. But the reverse is also true. Engage with beauty, awe, and delight, and your feed will shift accordingly.

This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending difficult things don’t exist. It’s about recognizing that where we direct our attention shapes not just our mood but our entire orientation toward life. Rage bait trains us to see threats everywhere. Beauty, awe, and delight train us to notice what’s worth noticing.

Start small. Unfollow one account that consistently makes you angry. Follow one that consistently makes you think “wow” or “huh” or “that’s amazing.” Notice how you feel after ten minutes of scrolling. Adjust accordingly.

You have more control than you think. The bait is everywhere, but you get to choose which hook to bite.

Or Don’t Bite at All

Of course, there’s another even better option: put the screen away entirely. Close the app. Look up. Notice the actual world in front of you, the one that doesn’t come with an engagement algorithm attached.

Beauty, awe, and delight exist beyond your feed. They’re in the light coming through your window, the conversation with someone you love, the book you’ve been meaning to read, the walk you keep postponing. These experiences don’t need to be curated or optimized. They just need your presence.

Sometimes the best response to all the bait, rage or otherwise, is to simply stop fishing.

Every November, like clockwork, my inbox fills with articles about “surviving” the holidays. Social media feeds explode with memes about toxic family dinners and gift-giving anxiety. Wellness influencers launch special “holiday stress management” programs. The message is clear. Brace yourself: the holidays are coming, and they’re going to be terrible.

But what if our obsession with holiday stress is actually creating more of it?

The Stress About Stress

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: by constantly anticipating, discussing, and preparing for holiday stress, we’re essentially training ourselves to experience it. We’ve created a cultural script that tells us the holidays should be overwhelming, and then we dutifully perform our part.

Psychologists call this “anticipatory anxiety” — when worrying about a future event becomes more distressing than the event itself. Research published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience shows that uncertainty about a possible future threat disrupts our ability to cope effectively, and that anticipating a stressful event can trigger the same stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) as actually experiencing it. Oftentimes, anticipatory stress can be even more intense than the actual event.

We’ve turned the holidays into the stress Olympics, competing to see who has it worse. “You think your mother-in-law is difficult? Wait until you hear about mine.” “Three parties this week? I have five.”

This isn’t resilience. It’s catastrophizing with a seasonal theme.

What the Research Actually Says

The interesting thing is that research on holiday stress doesn’t quite support our collective panic. Yes, some people experience increased stress during the holidays. But many others report feeling happier, more connected, and more energized during this time.

According to the American Psychological Association’s study on holiday stress, 78% of people report feeling happiness often during the holidays, and 75% report feeling love. The research found that “the holidays are, first and foremost, a joyful time.” While 44% of women and 31% of men reported increased stress, this means the majority did not experience elevated stress.

Moreover, Harvard Medical School research on holiday expectations found that people who expected to feel great reported that their mood wasn’t quite as high as anticipated, while those who expected to feel miserable hadn’t felt that bad. Our expectations rarely match reality in either direction.

When we expect stress, we filter our experiences through that lens. The traffic is evidence of stress. The crowded store is proof of stress. Your aunt’s political comment becomes yet another data point confirming your hypothesis that the holidays are terrible.

By constantly validating holiday stress, we’ve inadvertently removed something crucial: permission to enjoy ourselves.

Think about it. If someone says, “I actually love the holidays,” what’s the typical response? Either skeptical eyebrow raises or accusations of being in denial. We’ve made holiday enjoyment seem naive or fake.

This creates a bizarre situation where people feel guilty for not being stressed enough. “Everyone else is overwhelmed, so what’s wrong with me that I’m actually having fun?”

The truth is that meaning, connection, and even a bit of productive hustle aren’t inherently harmful. The problem isn’t the holidays themselves; it’s the narrative we’ve constructed around them.

The Paradox of Preparation

The wellness industry has convinced us that we need extensive preparation to handle the holidays. Special meditation practices. Boundary-setting workshops. Complicated schedules to manage our social obligations.

But here’s the paradox: all this preparation might be adding to our mental load rather than reducing it. When you treat the holidays like you’re preparing for a natural disaster, you create a sense of impending doom.

Consider this thought experiment: What if you approached the holidays the same way you approached any other busy week? Not with dread and extensive defensive measures, but with normal, everyday coping mechanisms and a reasonable amount of flexibility?

In our achievement-oriented culture, busyness and stress have become markers of importance. “I’m so stressed about the holidays” is a socially acceptable way of saying “I’m important, needed, and living a full life.”

But this creates a trap. We’re invested in maintaining our stress narrative because it validates our significance. Admitting the holidays aren’t that stressful feels like admitting you don’t matter as much.

The result? We unconsciously amplify minor inconveniences into major stressors to maintain our place in the social hierarchy of importance.

Reclaiming Reality

None of this means the holidays are perfect or that real challenges don’t exist. Family dynamics can be complicated. Financial pressures are real. Loss and grief are particularly acute during times meant for celebration.

But there’s a massive difference between acknowledging genuine difficulties and participating in collective catastrophizing.

What if, instead of preparing for battle, we simply showed up? What if we stopped treating normal life challenges—making decisions about gifts, managing our time, navigating relationships—as though they require special crisis management skills?

The Radical Act of Not Catastrophizing

Here’s what I’m proposing. For just one holiday season, try opting out of the stress narrative.

This doesn’t mean being in denial or forcing toxic positivity. It means:

• Refusing to participate in competitive stress conversations
• Noticing when you’re anticipating stress that hasn’t materialized
• Distinguishing between actual problems and expected problems
• Allowing yourself to enjoy things without self-conscious commentary
• Treating holiday challenges as normal life challenges, not catastrophes

The most counterintuitive thing about holiday stress might be this: we have more control over our experience than we’ve been led to believe. Not total control because life doesn’t work that way. But more than we’re currently exercising.

What if the holidays aren’t the problem? What if the problem is our modern addiction to stress narratives, and the holidays are simply when this tendency reaches fever pitch?

Perhaps the gift we most need this season isn’t another stress-management technique. Perhaps it’s permission to stop making everything such a big deal.

Because here’s the thing: when we stop expecting disaster, when we stop performing stress, when we stop competing for who has it worst—something surprising might happen.

We might actually have a pretty decent time.

And wouldn’t that be the most counterintuitive outcome of all?

One cannot read a book or watch a movie these days without encountering a revelation of past trauma. In the New Yorker, Parul Sehgal calls this the “trauma plot” — narratives that center around a character’s traumatic past experiences that conveniently explain all present-day behavior and personality. The story keeps circling back to that wound as the key to understanding who the character is, often through a revelation or flashback structure where we gradually learn about “what really happened.”

Consider Yellowstone, where the Dutton family’s dysfunction all traces back to the mother’s death and John’s harsh parenting, explaining each child’s particular brokenness. In Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith’s “dark and twisty” personality stems from her mother’s Alzheimer’s and abandonment issues. Nearly every character has a defining trauma; Derek’s father’s murder, Cristina’s plane crash PTSD. The message is simple: the past not only impacts you, it defines you. You are who you were and always will be.

When the past becomes the plot

What troubles me about this line of thinking is the assumption of permanence. “This is who I am,” they tell me.

But here’s what the research actually shows: the majority of people who go through difficult times are resilient, experiencing little if any lasting psychological changes due to their experience. When it comes to attachment issues, there is very little evidence that early experiences determine adult outcomes. Let me say that again: there is very little evidence that early experiences determine adult outcomes.

While your early interactions influence how you relate to others as an adult, the connection is surprisingly weak. Researchers have found that many people who had supportive parents still struggle with insecure relationships, and many people with difficult childhoods end up feeling secure in their adult relationships. Put simply, foundations are not fate.

When challenges become opportunities

Instead of dwelling on past difficulties and allowing them to become a central part of your identity, research from Stanford University reveals a more effective path forward. In a randomized controlled trial conducted two years after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers guided participants through a one-hour intervention designed to shift their mindset about their lockdown experience.

The intervention included watching short videos highlighting how people often grow as a result of living through difficult or watershed events. Common areas of growth included developing a greater appreciation for life, strengthening relationships, deepening spirituality, and pursuing new opportunities.

After viewing the videos, participants reflected in writing on their current mindsets about the long-term impact of the pandemic and potential areas of growth they could pursue in their own lives. The results were striking: those who received the intervention showed lower levels of depression three months later compared to the control group. Blood tests also revealed lower levels of C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker linked to chronic stress and disease.

Moving forward with purpose and perspective

If you’re having trouble moving forward after a difficult time, here are some questions to consider:

• How have your relationships transformed as a result of this event?
• In what ways have you noticed that you’ve grown stronger or more resilient?
• How has your sense of what matters changed?
• What changes would you like to make to better prioritize what matters most to you?
• Are there any habits or routines you’d like to break out of?

The takeaway here isn’t to “think positive.” Rather, it’s to restore nuance, to counteract catastrophizing, and to challenge the belief that you are permanently broken and vulnerable.

The question isn’t what happened to you; it’s what you’ll do next.

Last weekend, I watched my neighbor meticulously blow every leaf from his driveway, directly onto mine. As I stood there amid a swirling cloud of oak leaves that weren’t mine five minutes ago, I realized I was witnessing something far more common than inconsiderate lawn care.

I was seeing the leaf blower mindset in action.

The Problem With Problem-Shifting

The leaf blower mindset is the reflexive impulse to solve our problems by making them someone else’s. We meet a deadline by creating chaos for our colleagues. We feel better by venting our frustrations onto our partners. We clear our conscience by deflecting blame onto our teams.

Like an actual leaf blower, this approach offers immediate relief. Your space looks cleaner. You feel lighter. Problem solved… for you.

But here’s what research on responsibility and organizational behavior reveals: when we habitually shift our problems onto others, we don’t actually solve them. We multiply them. And we erode the very relationships we need to thrive.

Research by Nathanael Fast at USC and Larissa Tiedens at Stanford found that blame-shifting is socially contagious. When people see others deflecting responsibility, they become more likely to do it themselves. This creates accountability sinkholes or situations where problems become everyone’s problem and therefore no one’s problem. Projects stall. Trust evaporates. And paradoxically, the deflectors themselves become less effective over time because no one wants to collaborate with them.

The leaf blower mindset absolves us of responsibility in the moment, but it compounds our problems in the long run.

Why Smart People Blow Leaves

• Cognitive load overflow

  When we’re overwhelmed, our brains search for the path of least resistance. Offloading a problem to someone else feels like survival, not selfishness.

• Emotional regulation shortcuts

  Venting or delegating our discomfort provides immediate relief. It’s the psychological equivalent of a pressure valve; quick but ultimately ineffective.

• Systemic reinforcement

  In many workplaces and relationships, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. People learn that the fastest way to get relief is to make their problem loud enough that someone else handles it.

None of this makes the behavior acceptable, but it does make it understandable and clarifies what we can do next.

Three Strategies to Ground Yourself

1. Apply “The Return Policy”

Before you delegate, vent, or deflect — ask yourself:

“If this problem came back to me in six months, would I be better or worse off for having shifted it?”

This quick mental simulation shifts your attention from immediate relief to long-term outcomes. Psychologists call this prospective hindsight, a method involves imagining future consequences before acting. Research shows it increases accountability and reduces impulsive choices.

Consider the colleague who asks for last-minute help because they procrastinated. The return policy helps you see that saying yes teaches them to repeat the behavior and keeps you stuck in the same loop.

A better response might be:

“I can’t this time, but let’s set up a regular check-in so you get feedback earlier.”

You’re not withholding help. You’re interrupting a pattern that harms both of you.

2. Build a “Responsibility Inventory”

Once a week, write down three problems you faced and how you handled them.

Then ask:

“Did I own this, or did I hand it off?”

This is not an exercise in self-criticism. It’s pattern recognition. Adam Grant’s research on feedback loops shows that people often miss their own behavior until they create a structure for observing it.

The strength of this practice comes from specificity. Instead of a vague feeling such as “I complain too much,” you might realize something clearer: “I vented to Sarah about the same issue three times instead of raising it with my manager.”

Once you see the pattern, you can interrupt it. You might choose to have the difficult conversation you have been avoiding. You might set firmer boundaries instead of scrambling later. You might finally address the actual problem instead of circulating it.

3. Establish “Problem Ownership Agreements”

Have an explicit conversation with your key relationships — including your partner, team, and close friends — about how you’ll handle problems together.

This approach may sound formal, but research on relationship maintenance shows that unspoken expectations create far more conflict than explicit ones.

A simple framework is:

“When I’m struggling with something, I’ll tell you whether I’m looking for help solving it, empathy while I work through it, or just someone to listen. And I’d love it if you did the same for me.”

This creates clarity about when you’re genuinely collaborating and when you’re unloading. It transforms venting into connection and builds trust because everyone understands the difference between “I need support” and “I am making this your responsibility.”

The same principle applies at work. You might say: “When I delegate this project, here is what I am handing off and here is what I am staying responsible for.”

Transparency prevents the leaf blower dynamic where everything ambiguous becomes everyone else’s problem.

The Surprising Upside

Here’s what I’ve learned from people who’ve successfully shifted away from the leaf blower mindset: taking responsibility for your problems doesn’t mean carrying them alone. It means being intentional about how and when you involve others.

When you stop reflexively shifting your problems onto other people, something remarkable happens. People start trusting you more. They lean in instead of pulling back. They’re more willing to help when you genuinely need it because they know you’re not just looking for someone to blow your leaves onto.

The goal isn’t perfect self-sufficiency. It’s thoughtful interdependence.

My neighbor eventually came over to help me with those leaves. Not because I demanded it, but because I mentioned it directly and without accusation: “Hey, I noticed the leaves ended up in my yard. Can we figure out a system that works for both of us?”

We raked them into bags in fifteen minutes.

Sometimes the best way to clear your space is to stop leaf blowing and start building.

Sarah prides herself on being realistic. “Look, I’m clear eyed about how the world works. It’s a dangerous place filled with dangerous people.” She plans for worst-case scenarios and assumes people will always take advantage of her. Sarah is convinced that her realism is protecting her from being ill-prepared and considers herself a realist in a world full of naive optimists.

Sarah’s perspective illustrates something I increasingly see in my practice: people who believe their pessimism is protecting when it’s actually imprisoning them. What they call “being realistic” has become a form of cognitive self-sabotage. It’s making them miserable and, paradoxically, less prepared for actual challenges.

All too often, outright pessimism is wearing a cloak of realism. But there is nothing realistic about defeatism and hopelessness. If anything it’s an on-ramp for depression and anxiety. Plus, emerging research suggests that those “naive optimists” might actually be the ones who are better equipped to handle whatever comes their way.

Your Beliefs Are Writing Your Story

Psychologist Jeremy Clifton at the University of Pennsylvania has spent years studying what he calls “primal world beliefs” — our deepest assumptions about whether the world is fundamentally safe or dangerous, meaningful or meaningless, abundant or scarce. His research reveals that these beliefs don’t just reflect our experiences; they actively create them.

Clifton and his team discovered that our most basic assumptions about reality—whether life is generally safe or dangerous, whether people are trustworthy or suspicious, whether the future holds promise or peril—function like invisible software running in the background of our minds.

Consider two people stuck in the same traffic jam. The first thinks, “This is typical. Nothing ever goes smoothly.” The second thinks, “This gives me time to listen to that podcast I’ve been meaning to catch up on.” Same situation, completely different internal experience, and ultimately, different outcomes for their day.

Clifton’s research shows systematic patterns in how we fundamentally view the way the world works. And here’s the kicker: people who believe the world is generally safe, meaningful, and full of possibilities don’t just feel better. They actually perform better, innovate more, and build stronger relationships.

How Your Brain Creates Your Reality

It’s not just theoretical. Brain imaging studies show that people with more positive primal beliefs, or those who see the world as generally safe and meaningful, have greater activity in regions associated with approach behaviors and creative problem-solving. Meanwhile, those who view the world as threatening show chronic activation in areas linked to stress and avoidance.

Assumptions don’t just color how we interpret events; they actively shape what we notice, remember, and expect. Someone who fundamentally believes the world is deteriorating will unconsciously seek out evidence of decline. Someone who believes it’s improving will notice progress and possibility.

Put simply, Sarah’s “realistic” preparation for problems isn’t making her more effective. It’s training her brain to expect and create even more problems.

Why Catastrophizing Became Cool

Visit many classrooms today and you’ll notice a troubling pattern: young people are learning about the world’s problems without equal emphasis on humanity’s capacity to solve them.

Students study climate change before they learn about the innovations addressing it. They focus on historical injustices before they explore human progress. They’re taught to identify systemic problems before they develop skills to create solutions.

Somewhere along the way, catastrophizing became culturally fashionable. Being the person who points out everything that could go wrong is now seen as being “aware” or “informed.” Meanwhile, those who focus on solutions or express optimism about the future are often dismissed as naive or privileged.

This cultural shift has turned pessimism into a virtue and optimism into a character flaw. We’ve created a social environment where doom-saying signals intelligence and hope-mongering suggests ignorance.

We tell ourselves this is “preparing our children for reality.” But what if we’re actually preparing them for depression?

The statistics are sobering: rates of anxiety and hopelessness among teenagers have skyrocketed over the past decade, even as many objective measures of human wellbeing have improved. Could there be a connection between how we’re framing the world and how young people are responding to it?

Shift Your Perspective

By changing the questions you ask yourself and the stories you tell, you can train your brain to focus less on problems and more on possibilities. Strategic optimism isn’t about pretending problems don’t exist. It’s about approaching them from a position of agency rather than helplessness.

These five mindset shifts are simple but powerful ways to reframe your thinking:

1. Start With Possibility, Not Problems

Instead of starting conversations with problems, start with potential. Yes, acknowledge challenges, but immediately pivot to exploring options. Your brain will follow your questions.

“What’s wrong?” → “What’s possible?”

This shift primes your mind to search for openings instead of obstacles.

2. Treat Setbacks as Information, Not Evidence of Decline

When facing setbacks, resist the urge to see them as evidence of decline. Instead, treat them as data points that can inform better strategies.

“This always happens to me.” → “This is new information that will help me improve my approach.”

Each challenge becomes a stepping stone when you view it as data, not destiny.

3. Build Capacity Instead of Preparing for Catastrophe

Stop rehearsing worst-case scenarios as if fear equals preparation.

“I need to prepare for the worst.” → “I need to build capacity for whatever comes.”

The goal isn’t to predict specific outcomes. It’s to develop the skills, relationships, and resilience to handle uncertainty effectively.

4. Move Conversations Forward with “Yes, and…”

When a concern shows up in your mind or in conversation, acknowledge it but don’t stop there.

“This is a problem.” → “Yes, this is challenging, and what might be possible here?”

This approach keeps your thinking flexible, future-focused, and solutions-oriented.

5. Collect Evidence of What’s Working

Train your brain to notice progress, not just problems. Each week, be deliberate about spotting moments that went better than expected.

“Nothing ever goes right.” → “There’s more going right than I’m noticing.”

Over time, your brain learns that positive outcomes are normal, not rare exceptions.

The Ripple Effect

When you shift your worldview from scarcity to possibility, something remarkable happens: not only do you feel better, you become a source of energy and innovation for others.

Your children stop seeing the future as something to fear and start seeing it as something to create. Your colleagues approach challenges with curiosity rather than dread. Your friends gravitate toward you during difficult times because you help them remember what’s possible.

This isn’t about being unrealistic; it’s about being strategically realistic. It’s acknowledging that humans have remarkable capacity for adaptation, that creative solutions exist for most problems, and that we have more power to shape our future than we often realize.

The Choice We All Face

As Sarah is beginning to realize, every day, we’re making a choice about what kind of world we’re creating; not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.

We can focus on everything that’s broken and train our brains to expect more breakdown. Or we can acknowledge problems while maintaining unshakeable faith in human capacity to address them.

The research is clear: people who choose the second path don’t just feel better—they perform better, innovate more, and contribute more to actually solving the problems we all care about.

Every conversation you have, every story you tell, every reaction you have to challenges are votes for the kind of world you want to live in. When you choose hope over despair, and possibility over paralysis, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re creating the conditions for others to thrive too.

Growing up, I was not allowed to use the word “hate.” It was considered a four-letter word in our house. “Dislike” was perfectly fine, but “hate” was verboten. It was my beloved nanny who made this rule, and it applied to everything from broccoli to people.

She believed that hating said more about the hater than the object being hated. In her view, hating something gave it both power and permanence. If I hated my third-grade classmate Stacy for not inviting me to her birthday party, my nanny worried that the sentiment might creep into my everyday existence, coloring all future interactions—or even non-interactions—with Stacy.

If I hated something or someone, she reasoned, it would be virtually impossible to change my mind. But if I merely disliked it? Well then, maybe—just maybe—I might come around. Maybe they would change. Maybe I would. Maybe I would see things differently one day.

Dislike leaves the door open. Hate slams it closed.

For the record, Stacy and I became friends a few weeks later. I still dislike broccoli.

At the very least, my nanny argued, making the decision not to hate kept things in perspective. Disliking something was passive, but hating was active—it was work. She liked to quote Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous words: “I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

If the word hate rolled off my tongue too easily, she worried it might also take up residence in my heart. And once there, it would become harder to shift.

My nanny believed that words had power, but she also knew they weren’t all-powerful. If someone said something hateful, her advice was simple: don’t dwell on it. She subscribed to that old adage: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I suspect she would have agreed with the sentiment that words are not violence—only violence is violence. She was a big believer in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, assuming positive intent, and not judging people in their worst moments.

Every Sunday, Reverend Jeremy Carlson gives this blessing at the end of the service, and it always makes me think of how my nanny approached life and treated everyone she encountered, even those with whom she disagreed:

Life is short, And we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So… be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.

Please read that twice. Consider committing it to memory.

I call on this message whenever I need to be reminded of the importance of strengthening our connection with those we travel alongside and those whose paths we cross, however briefly.

My nanny’s simple rule about avoiding the word “hate” was never really about vocabulary; it was about perspective. When we catch ourselves reaching for that word, whether about a person, situation, or even Brussels Sprouts, we can pause and ask: What am I really feeling here? Disappointment? Frustration? Fear? Anger?

These more specific emotions are not only more accurate, they’re also more manageable. You can work with disappointment. You can address frustration. You can understand fear. But hate just sits there, heavy and immovable, taking up space in your head and heart that could be used for something far more productive.

So try this: For one week, notice when you’re tempted to use the word “hate”—whether in conversation or even in your own thoughts. Replace it with something more precise. See what shifts. You might discover that leaving the door open just a crack lets the light in.