3 Questions That Help Me Embrace Disagreement

Note: This essay originally appeared in my monthly newsletter. If you would like to receive my next one, you can subscribe here.

As I look back on this year, a theme that stands out is how I have leaned into my ideas.

For years I hesitated to share on social media, fearing other people’s reactions. In 2024, I overcame these blocks. I published dozens of articles and hundreds of TikToks. I’ve stepped “into the arena” as Teddy Roosevelt might say.

This has led to a range of emotions. I’ve felt jolts of inspiration as I’ve connected with those also fighting for a cleaner future. I’ve dealt with trolls. I’ve taken in critiques and used them to improve my thinking.

These lessons have been the real value of sharing my thoughts.

Today I wanted to share three questions that have helped me interact with those who have different viewpoints than me. (And after all, we all view the world through a different lens.)

These questions help me think with more nuance, have more productive conversations, and work through the discomfort that comes with disagreeing.

I know these questions are abstract. If they don’t root in your mind right away, I encourage you to give them time to grow. I write these as reminders to my future self.

1) In What Way Are They Right?

​Two years ago in a newsletter​, I wrote about the book Rescuing Socrates.

In it, Roosevelt Montás makes the case that the “great books,” remain important today, even as they come under scrutiny or some of their ideas debunked.

He writes, “So with the ancients—and with anyone, really—before a dismissal of what seems patently wrong, it is worth asking, ‘In what way are they right?’”

In what way are they right?

I have returned to this question again and again. Where my instinct has been to debate and nitpick, this question leads to the opposite.

Instead of dismissing other people’s stories, this question helps me understand them.

This frame has led to productive dialogue in the most unlikely of places: TikTok. As New York City has debated Congestion Pricing — a toll for drivers going below 60th Street to fund mass transit — I’ve been on the front lines of the public debate.

In the comments, strangers have challenged my nice and neat narratives. Now I can view the topic from many layers.

• What about New York’s transit deserts?
• What about the communities where traffic will divert to? (Ironically, traffic will increase where I live in the Bronx.)
• What about the long history of bloated budgets for unfinished transit projects?

This question puts the brakes on my natural response: to debate, disagree, and defend. Instead, I look for the truth. In what way are they right?

Now I have a deeper understanding of the drawbacks. I’m better equipped to push for a better congestion pricing program.

This question also leads to conversations, not debates. It helps me understand the story they’re telling.

This brings me to my next question.

2) What Story Am I Telling Myself?

This summer during a trip to El Salvador, I made a video where I observed that the maids in the country were almost always darker-skinned and of indigenous blood. Meanwhile, the wealthy families who hired the maids tended to be whiter and more European. “Why is nobody talking about race?” I said.

So many comments were about how “It’s not about race. We’re all one race.” Or how “They give them good jobs and treat them like family so it’s okay.”

I saw how the stories people told themselves justified their role in this pseudo-caste system.

I thought of the Joan Didion quote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

Yet, I turned this question on myself. What stories do I tell myself to live? What stories do I tell to justify my decisions?

Instead of viewing my stories or theirs as fact or fiction, I first recognized them as just that: stories.

From that lens, I can investigate where they are both true and incomplete. (And they are always incomplete.) To our minds, every fact and half-truth lives inside a story.

3) What Do I Notice?

In the book Raising Critical Thinkers, Julie Bogart discusses how what keeps us from “tolerating” different viewpoints isn’t the viewpoint itself: it’s about how it makes us feel.

“What is the skill we need in order to get to know someone who is different? It’s not the ability to tolerate them; it’s the ability to tolerate our own discomfort.”

(I enjoyed this book so much that ​I wrote about my takeaways​.)

If we talk to somebody with a different view, I have an internal experience. Maybe my fists tighten, my voice raises, my thoughts race to search for a defense. The challenge is to deal with my discomfort, not their viewpoint.

Asking myself “What do I notice?” helps me pause and reflect inward. From this question, I often ask myself the story I’m telling.

Thanks to these questions, as I share more I have become more open to debate, more excited by disagreement, and less stressed and angry with each person who sees things differently. It has made sharing my thoughts with the world an even more exciting journey.

If you’re feeling called to share more with the world this year, or maybe just with your friends, I hope these questions can help.