On A Difficulty Receiving Kindness | by Johnson Hsieh | Medium

There’s probably volumes to say about experiences of receiving kindness, but I’d like to focus on one that was surprising and eye opening for me, both in terms of how challenging it was, and how it helped me relate to my partner. I think this tweet suggests why these subtleties are important to understand. Most of September 2020, Jess and I stayed with my parents in Taipei. Staying for free in a slightly expensive city like Taipei is on paper a sweet deal. I often observed Jess staying in our room scrolling on her phone, sometimes being lethargic, and sometimes not being in the best mood. Eventually she requested that we get our own place for a while, which we did. I remember feeling confusion about my perception that she was unhappy, but also wanting to be supportive and accommodating. It wasn’t until my hitchhiking/couchsurfing trip in Chile over a year later that I finally understood and could connect with Jess on what, to me, was a mysterious situation. It turns out that being the

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