Me.
On any given day, at any given time.
Tonight was rough. It was one of those nights that you come home and think, "wow, that definitely could have gone over better."
I consider myself a pretty good communicator. At least, I try. In conflict, there's something extremely fulfilling about being able to communicate your feelings to someone accurately, and have them do the same....coming out of the conversation with a deeper understanding of who that person is, and hopefully, bringing you both closer in the end. I love it. Not the conflict itself, but the "working it out part". Maturity. Yes, maturity is what it's called.
Well I sucked at that tonight. I mean, really blew it. I had the raised voice, the hands over my face, little eye contact. All the cardinal rules. I broke them. Thank you Speech Communications major, I can now effectively pinpoint what NOT to do. Awesome.
Why is it so easy to communicate with some people, and then completely miss the point with others? When brains work SO differently, and thoughts are not parallel AT ALL...how do you remedy that? How can you fight with someone about how much you care about them? How can the things you are both saying....meant to be encouraging, loving, and considerate, be frustrating, hurtful, and completely misinterpreted. And the more you try to communicate effectively...the more exasperating it becomes. I very rarely experience frustration like that. And I gotta say, I'm not a fan.
We are a race that longs to be understood. A people that screams, "Please, get me. Get my thoughts. Get my jokes. Get my passions. Get my quirks, and love me for them. You don't have to agree with me, but please...understand me." And when we're not understood...or not understanding, whether it be on a large or small scale...it's frustrating, and sometimes really damaging. Some people will even turn that part of themselves off, claiming to "not care". They'll strip themselves of emotion, swallowing the need to be loved and understood, replacing it with cynicism and selfishness.
This world is full of broken people. Some have it worse than others, but everyone is searching for the same things. Everyone needs the same things. Love, acceptance....love.
Connect Tara. Connect and do it with love and a level head. Find the common ground, and plant yourself there, build something solid and tangible on it. Seek to understand. Learn to hear. And always, always, do it with God in the front of your mind.
Emotional. Passionate. High Spirited. Easily worked up.
Me. Tonight.
Good intentions? Yes.
Effective? Probably not.
Growing experience? That's what we'll call it.
This whole thing begs the question, "What happened?" but since that isn't included, I'll assume I don't really need to know. Well written. I think you wrote "quark" where you meant "quirk" but I still understood. Way to capture a little slice of life and explain it well. A rare gift. Gift?! Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteI hate it when i can't communicate myself clearly. Sorry that you blew it, thats no fun. You did well communicating your ideas in this blog though.
ReplyDeleteYay for communication!! You must be on the right track to be so thoughtful about the encounters -good or bad- that you do have. I've heard that one of the habits of great communicators is that after almost every conversation they have, they think back and figure out what was bad, what was ok, and what was great about the encounter.
ReplyDeleteI hope your break is gr8. I saw a video of you dancing with N8. and I laughed ;)