How do you gain experience without becoming cynical?

Early in my career, there were many things that people did that I couldn’t quite understand. Like when a manager would make the exact opposite decision of the one I would’ve made. I used to pester my colleagues all the time to try to get explanations. Some of these guys had been in the industry for decades, so they had plenty of experience. I learned a lot of useful things from them. But I also noticed that many of their answers were conveyed in a cynical tone. That didn’t feel quite satisfying to me. It seemed like the older people got, the more cynical their explanations became. I heard so much of this that I started to ponder this question: “How do you gain experience without becoming cynical?” This was somewhat of a concern for me. Would I lose my optimism someday? Was cynicism some kind of fate that I was doomed to fall into?

No, it wasn’t. I never lost the ability to see good things in people. What I did lose was my fear of cynicism. Now, this didn’t happen because I stood vigilant against cynical motives creeping into my mind. In fact, it was the exact opposite. The more I was able to tolerate all kinds of motivations in my mind, the better I could connect with them and appreciate their value. I could see how intrinsic motivations and extrinsic motivations could interact in complex ways to influence behavior. I could deconstruct them better and see where they came from. Over time, this helped me become a much better listener. I could hear past the sarcastic tone of my colleagues and get more meaning from their responses — even if I disagreed with them. I also realized how the idealistic tone of my questions could provoke the very cynicism from others that I didn’t like. And so I learned how to frame my questions better to get better answers. Now, there’s still plenty of room for improvement — but it’s a lot better than before.

It’s healthy to be able to take a skeptical point of view. If something sounds too good to be true, you want to be able to read the fine print. If a person allows themself to be exploited when they know better, they only have themself to blame. Fool me twice, shame on me. But if a person allows their skeptical powers to consume their judgment, it can lead to tragic misunderstandings. The worst lies in the world are the lies we tell ourselves. If I can only infer the most negative motivations about people who disagree with me, I’m cutting myself off from a larger truth. If I can only infer the most positive motivations about people I agree with, I’m also cutting myself off from a larger truth.

The larger truth is that we aren’t cartoon characters. We’re not contained by the stories that other people tell about us, or even the ones we tell about ourselves. We’re complex beings living in a complex world. Our actions don’t have to be self-denying to be good. Our actions don’t have to be self-serving to be bad. We need both introspection and feedback to understand who we are and what we bring to this world.

Cynicism and idealism are like training wheels. They give us something to lean on when we’re not quite sure of ourselves. But saying that experience always leads to cynicism (or idealism for that matter) is like saying we can never learn how to ride a bike. In fact, we can learn to let go of our training wheels without falling. We can even lean more steeply in either direction without losing our balance. Where is that balance? And how does it change over time? That’s up for you to discover on your journey.