If you're actually worried or concerned about how you're communicating, you're probably fine or at least acceptable.
It's the people who are either oblivious to the need to carefully communicate who are the difficult ones, along with those who intentionally ignore societal norms in an effort to prove their "alpha" status.
> If you're actually worried or concerned about how you're communicating, you're probably fine or at least acceptable.
I think I've finally realized how to articulate what my frustration with statements of the form "If you're worried about X, you're fine" is. The person presenting the worry has a prior of [I am worried about this]. They then go seeking a solution that will let them alleviate the worry by taking concrete steps to address it. When they run into the advice "If you're worried, you're fine", they have two problems:
1) If being worried is the only reason why they are at least acceptable, then to continue to be acceptable, they need to continue to be worried.
2) They haven't actually gotten a concrete action to take or thought exercise to go through. That means if the commenter is wrong and they actually do have a habit to work on, the only thing they might be doing differently is telling their intuition (system 1 for the Khanemann fans) "Hey, you know that alarm? turn it off." Their intuition probably doesn't listen very well and probably keeps them worried, but it is also no longer acting as a useful signal whatsoever of the problem.
----
The approach I would take is to come up with a list of actually-answerable questions to ask myself, to have faith in my intuitions on those questions unless I get concrete evidence that they are wrong, and then to work to make peace with the remaining discomfort. For example, when driving a car:
- Buy a wide-angle rear-view mirror so you have better spatial awareness.
- When opening any car door from the insite, habitually practice doing the Dutch reach.
- When you are aware of a cyclist, know the reference points on the car that you should keep them at so you are a safe passing distance.
- Don't do anything else besides perhaps converse with another human in the car while I'm driving.
- Practice scanning my environment while driving and other generally-safe driving habits.
- Having practiced your duty of care -- Accept the reality that at some point I might end up crushing another person's ribcage and snuffing out the life of someone's father/brother/aunt/teacher -- a fellow human.
Not when you're so worried about how you'll be perceived that you soften your statements beyond comprehension. And yes, this absolutely happens, and no, you probably don't realize if you're doing it.
Try re-reading a peer performance review you've written after the fact. It can be eye-opening.
It's the people who are either oblivious to the need to carefully communicate who are the difficult ones, along with those who intentionally ignore societal norms in an effort to prove their "alpha" status.