Biases are hard to uproot. No question about it. But that doesn’t mean giving up, stopping the work, or accepting that progress is impossible. And over the past two weeks, some progress has actually happened, despite, or rather because of, the context that triggered it. That context is exactly where I want to start, because with biases, context matters enormously. And this particular one opens up something much bigger. In a historical moment I can only describe as “interesting times.”
A necessary premise: this post will require some abstraction on your part. I can’t use specific names or places, both to avoid influencing how you read it and to protect the people involved. Those who know me well will probably connect the dots. Everyone else, I hope, will recognize the universal pattern I’m trying to describe.
The “We’ve Always Done It This Way” Pattern
There’s a pattern I keep encountering, especially among what we’d call boomers, though “boomer” isn’t just a generational label. It’s a mindset. And some of my peers, millennials included, embody it perfectly.
Picture an organization. Let’s call it “Useful Service.” Inside, there’s a coordinator, a decent person, competent at getting things done. But leadership? None. He doesn’t pass on knowledge, doesn’t open space for others, stays anchored to his own logic and timeline. “We’ve always done it this way. Back in my day. See, it works.” The people who could step in and change things don’t. For political reasons, shared worldview, or plain inertia.
The result is a slow, steady erosion. Young people and women join but aren’t valued. They’re told “You still need to learn,” “You’re too young,” “That technology stuff…,” “Not a bad idea, but give it time.” Some leave. And when they leave, they talk. A narrative spreads fast, and that narrative starts damaging the organization’s values, along with the people who invest genuine time and passion into it.
But whose fault is it really? The ones who generalize? The ones who vented? Or are we, as the old saying goes, focused on the splinter in someone else’s eye while ignoring the plank in our own?
The Hidden Cost of Those Who Know and Do Nothing
The boomer pattern carries a silent and insidious consequence: the inaction of those who see the problem clearly. Because there are people inside these systems who understand exactly where things are heading. And yet they tell themselves: “That’s just how the system works,” “I’ve got enough on my plate,” “Maybe it’ll fix itself,” “Maybe someone else will come along and change things.”
The result is that the erosion continues. Instead of fixing the crack in the dam, people keep stacking sandbags downstream. Often in good faith, convinced that new blood will bring fresh energy. But the price, the real price, is always paid by someone.
And there’s a consequence that rarely gets named: it spills into families. Into people outside the immediate context, but connected to someone who’s in it. Arguments start, resentment builds, biases form. You feel trapped, you tolerate situations you don’t agree with, you try to build alternatives out of love for someone, even when you feel like Cassandra, seeing everything clearly and not being heard.
People With Strong Values Play the Long Game
There’s a dynamic I find particularly interesting. People with solid values, sometimes amplified by neurodivergence, can appear slow to act. They take time. But when they reach a breaking point, the intelligence and sharpness that define them leads to precise, long-term movement. The others, those who endure without strong values to anchor them, keep going until they can’t anymore. Then they quietly fall apart.
I’m not trying to paint boomers as an absolute evil. That would be reductive, and frankly, a bias in itself. But in this particular historical moment, the cost of standing still is high. Very high.
Stones on the Go Board
Go, as always, helps me think. Even through these two difficult weeks, when the bias of depending on others’ judgment crept in quietly, I kept analyzing and placing stones. In Go, you start with the corners, then the sides, then the center. Every stone has value, even the ones that look passive.
I see it in my volunteering at Croce Verde, where small steps are starting to show real results, where the wall is beginning to crack, where something is actually shifting. “Useful Service” is still an open wound for me, and I acknowledge that without justifying it. That bias is there, I’m working on it. But the Go match isn’t over. And sometimes, the stones placed with patience lead to results nobody expected.