The Comfort of Logic

"Think about it--is that logical?" I often ask.

This question is useless without adequate contextual reasoning, which I'm happy to provide my students when appropriate. I'll give you an example of a real (albeit, generously edited) interaction I had with a student earlier this year.

This student had been emailing back and forth with a Student Ambassador from a certain university, who was working for the school on a volunteer basis. He believed that the Student Ambassador was unimpressed by his lack of specific questions, and wanted to be challenged by a more difficult and convoluted query set. I told him that he should fight the urge to indulge his primary instinct--sending the Student Ambassador a third email, this time even longer and more complicated than the first two--in favor of a simple and genuine thank you with a tone of finality and a hint of open-endedness. Chef's kiss.

My student fought this suggestion, insisting he felt in his bones he should respond. I asked him why he felt so strongly, to which he replied that he felt the Ambassador didn't like him. I asked my classic question then, "Think about it--is that logical?"

I proceeded to give him a breakdown of why the idea this random Ambassador kid hating him was illogical. First of all, volunteering is no longer as altruistic of a practice in the world of 2023 as it once was. Simpler eras were more conducive to fostering the generosity of donating time. You can't blame people for not feeling the motivation to volunteer unless there is some kind of symbiotic nature to the commitment, though. Not when people are hanging on by a thread, physically, psychologically, mentally, and oftentimes all and not limited to the above.

If we can defend this logic, that very rarely do people nowadays volunteer unless they will experience some kind of tangible personal benefit (even the feeling of do-gooderism can be seen a a psychological boon), then we can assume that a Student Ambassador is likely serving their role not because they love their institution, but because they stand something to gain from the job. That's an important word to consider here: job. A job, no matter how "fun" it may be at times, is work. In a world built on over-efficiency and over-production, everyone is hyper-focused on eliminating as much work in their life as possible.

Therefore, my Dear Student, the Student Ambassador does not hate you. He has no feelings about you. He doesn't want to think about you again. Don't take it personally--you are exchanging impersonal emails over a virtual space, and both of you are in it, ultimately, for the game. That's why it's illogical that he hates you. That's why you shouldn't feel upset or worried about his supposed judgments. He's just another kid, fighting for whatever free time he can get, hoping his email doesn't send him another notification.

No, he'll only hate you if you send that third email. How dare you do that, when you know what it's like to be in his shoes, he, the busy, weary college student? Let logic save you from your anxious mind. Switch roles. Empathy allows for the immensely valuable tool of mental and emotional control, of freedom. If you wouldn't hate you, then why would he?

Easy. He doesn't.