How Taking Notes Mitigates the Emotions’ Curse

Emotions are the opium of people

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash

The most important moments of awareness in my life have always been accompanied by rain.

I felt the pouring rain on the window in the evening when rereading my diary, I realized that many notes I had written looked like photographs of emotions. It was the period of my professional life when I was a scum master.

I loved calling myself a human developer. The attitude I promised to have daily was respect for the emotions of each member of the teams I was part of. It was an honest approach, but wrong.

My main mistake? Assuming that emotions and respect can coexist.

Quoting my journal

Episode #1

February 2018. It's 10 a.m. I'm about to start the 'daily stand-up'—for those unfamiliar with agile ceremonies, it’s a daily meeting all team members attend to share what they did, what they plan to do, and any impediments—but Jack is absent. Everyone agrees to start without Jack. They can always update later.

Then, we proceed to do the ‘daily stand-up,’ at the end of which Jack entered the office. He doesn’t even say ‘Hello.’ He starts working without any mention of having skipped the daily and being late.