in doing so, seeking to influence the behaviour of others
See that’s the thing. If that’s your endgame in your interactions, you’re always gonna be disappointed.
Actually changing someone’s opinion, mindset or behaviour takes a long ass time. I’ve worked with young people at risk of being radicalised. You know how long it took to get those kids/young adults to even CONSIDER that there might be some value in different opinions? It would have been really easy to be like “omg have you no shame”. But there were many, many reasons those young people had been attracted by such unpalatable groups and opinions. Belonging. Community. Friendship. Even safety - some were young runaways or from very chaotic home lives who had been taken in by members of these groups and looked after, the first time in their lives they’d received kindness, even just regular hot meals. Yes, of course it was grooming, but a young person won’t understand that overnight because someone shouts at them.
I’m not equating breaking Covid rules with terrorist group membership obvs, but the principle is the same. If you want to actually influence people to change behaviour, it takes a lot of time, patience, you also have to be really willing to listen and understand why people have formed the views they have, which means understanding the views they hold in the full context of the lives they’ve led. And that often involves listening to some very uncomfortable stuff and maybe even questioning your own opinions too. If you’re just going in there with “I’m right, you’re wrong and this is why” it just doesn’t work and you’ll always be disappointed with the outcome.
I really did feel like you @HaveringWavering in the first lockdown. I was pissed at rule breakers, felt everyone who broke the rules could kill someone, I was very frightened. I think what changed for me was that I had to go back to work and I had to face those fears. Many of my patients weren’t coping and were at high risk of hospitalisation or even suicide. I saw how much people were suffering due to the isolation and the anxiety. I saw the other side of it, I guess. I began to question blind adherence to all these rules at that point - and there was a particular situation I was in where such rigid adherence to the rules without regard for compassionate grounds caused a situation to get much much worse than it needed to have been. Many of my colleagues went back behind a screen in the second and third lockdowns, because they felt “work from home if you can” meant they had to, because technically they could. I didn’t, and took some flak for it. Who’s right? The law could not give a clear answer on that one, so I went with my clinical judgement and I’ll stand by that decision. I also see why other clinicians felt differently - or might have had patients who were fine being supported remotely. My experiences in work during this pandemic taught me that the law and “the rules” can’t always tell us what’s right. But not everyone will have experienced what I did, so of course will come to different conclusions.