JUST is a 4-letter Word
Can’t we just X? You should just X. He just does X. I just want X. For such a small word, just can create a lot of trouble.
Whenever we use the word just in these ways, we are maximizing ourselves and our understanding of the world while minimizing other people, other perspectives, and other knowledge of the world. It’s a subtle form of hubris: an unsubstantiated pride in one’s perspective or importance. Anyone other than me, any perspective other than mine, any expertise I don’t have, any topics with which I am unfamiliar… cannot be worthy of careful consideration. That’s what just says.
That’s why when you take the prideful approach of diminishing people and ideas that are different from you by using the word just, we say in English that you are not doing justice to them.
Pro tip: if there’s something you don’t understand deeply or someone you don’t know well, assume there’s more than meets the eye.
So, before I blithely diminish you with the word just, I should exercise some imaginative empathy by asking myself what life would look and feel like … not if I were in your shoes, but if I were you. Then I can perhaps get a glimpse of the real you, and I might be less prone to diminish you with the word just. Only when I get past the minimizing word just can I begin … to do you and your situation justice.
Be good to one another this week. There is so much more than meets the eye.
Scott
Keep reading on this thread…
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just and must: two words we can largely do without.