I was thinking about this recently. Wanted to use “just” in a sentence and realized it might be perceived as invalidating.
I considered I could just drop the “just” and express myself more directly. That’s what I usually do when a “just” slips into my writing. This time I felt tension because I thought I wasn’t really saying what I wanted to say.
I ended up using the “just” version in my text message because I couldn’t think of a fitting alternative fast enough.
After reading this article I finally got it. I use “just” to introduce some alternative, usually an alternative I consider obvious, but not necessarily simple.
Of course that doesn’t prevent people thinking you’re trivializing their situation or worse thinking you think they were too dumb think of the alternative you just proposed. So, I agree it’s probably just better not to use “just.”
I was thinking about this recently. Wanted to use “just” in a sentence and realized it might be perceived as invalidating.
I considered I could just drop the “just” and express myself more directly. That’s what I usually do when a “just” slips into my writing. This time I felt tension because I thought I wasn’t really saying what I wanted to say.
I ended up using the “just” version in my text message because I couldn’t think of a fitting alternative fast enough.
After reading this article I finally got it. I use “just” to introduce some alternative, usually an alternative I consider obvious, but not necessarily simple.
Of course that doesn’t prevent people thinking you’re trivializing their situation or worse thinking you think they were too dumb think of the alternative you just proposed. So, I agree it’s probably just better not to use “just.”