Hey guys! I hope you are all doing well. Currently, we are right in the middle of the allergy season, and I've been suffering from runny nose and sneezing for the past month or so. But other than that, I'm in a good condition.
Lately, I've become keenly aware of how important communication is. When a communication breakdown happens, we tend to think that the other person is mean or dumb. But if you look closely, that is not the case. Communication breakdowns happen because you and the other person are using different kinds of logic regarding communicating. Most of the times, we don't explicitly say what we mean. When you say, "Hmm, it's hot in here," you actually mean, "So can you open the window so that the cooler air outside can come in?" Or, it could be that you want the other person to turn on the AC for you, depending on the situation you are in.
Communication breakdowns happen when the other person didn't get your intention or interpreted your intention in a wrong way, or when you didn't get the other person's intention or interpreted that person's intention wrong. Let's use the window example again. You said, "Hmm, it's hot in here," to show politeness; you didn't want to look like you are making an order to that person. You show politeness by avoiding saying things in direct ways. But it is never guaranteed that the other person will always get your intention and appreciate it. He/She might think, "Ugh, why don't you just say things clearly, and ask me to open the window, instead of dropping 'hints'?" In this case, the other person did not get your intention, which is the sign of being polite, and would rather think of you as a disagreeable person.
If you can notice and point out what is going wrong like this all the time, life would be much easier. But in reality, emotions come first, and we often fail to analyze and assess the communication breakdown we just experienced. And we are quick to conclude that the other person didn't get our intention because that person was being mean or stupid, and so that it's hard to get along with him/her.
Let me give you a real-life example here. This is a communication breakdown that I have been experiencing over and over again recently. My mother loves to give out advice, even when nobody asks. She just randomly shows up in front of me and starts preaching. What kind of advice? Well, those are just small ones. Most of them are related to housekeeping, such as how to keep things clean and last long, or how to better store foods, etc. You know, she's a mom, and moms know a lot of things about housekeeping. So yeah, maybe I should appreciate all those advice she has given me, and say, "Thank you," each time.
But here's a problem. She comes up and starts "educating" whenever she wants to, not when I am ready or willing to listen to her. Alright, so let's say that you are in your room alone, and reading a book. The book is really interesting, and you are really focusing on it. Now, do you want your mom to show up at your door and starts talking without asking if it's okay for you to have a conversation with her?
For her, her daughters (= me and my younger sister) are projections of herself in a way, and I guess that she thinks of her kids to be subordinates to her. And I guess that's way she has never thought that her action is impolite and that's bugging me. She thinks she's being kind and generous to give out those advice to me, and doesn't see any reason that I should be annoyed by her. Her advice/knowledge itself is actually useful, but sadly, there are times when I cannot be thankful to her.
So what can we say about this? Well, the first lesson we can get from this narrative is: do not try to give advice when nobody asks you to. The second lesson is that not only what you say, but also how you say it and when you say it are also very important. And lastly, know that the other person will not always get what you intended or what you meant. We should be aware that there is always a chance of communication breakdown, even with the ones we consider to be very close. So we should keep our minds open and engage in active listening. We should try to pay attention not just to what other person is saying, but also to his/her body language, intention, and feelings. Be a good listener.
Thank you so much for reading this post! I hope you all have a wonderful day! See you in my next post :) Bye!
No comments:
Post a Comment