MEAN WHAT YOU SAY !!!

“Priya, I’m Leaving,” says Raj as he leaves for work. She runs out but he is already gone. She spends the whole day assuming that Raj left annoyed because he spoke with authority & left without waiting for her. She does not make time to check & things go worse in that silence.

Often you end up sharing such a frame with family, boss or friends in a lifetime, little realizing the magic of communication & the need to bring clarity. But as a day’s activity if you sit to make a list of miscommunications you have had, you will end up writing down at least five. It might be something the milkman said or the best friend pointed out. In other words, how often do you misinterpret what has been said or done, just because you do not know how to communicate properly or got the other person terribly wrong ?

In the end you make assumptions based on your own, perhaps in a narrow perspective & not take into account what others might be feeling or thinking. Even, you forget the fact that they have had a bad day or they were lost in thought so they failed to respond to you or did not think before they spoke. There are many ways in which you can interpret a simple statement by changing the emphasis on a particular word. The slightest change in your tone, facial expression or the body language in general, can find you conveying a totally different meaning to others.

Effective communication is thus all about conveying your messages to other people clearly & unambiguously, and to clear all the air of confusion & conflicts. It is also about receiving information that others are sending to you, with as little distortion as possible & it involves effort from both the sender of the message & the receiver. In fact how to communicate is something you need to learn early on in life & with time you become better & better at it. But if you miss the bus or do not know how to do it properly or get it wrong, it can lead to poor communication throughout the rest of your life. The end result will be, you may get into bad habits of thinking, brooding & hurting yourself & loved ones around you. The discomfort that you feel ends in a suffocating self-imposed silence to avoid conflicts or argument.

Mastering the skills of talking & saying what you feel is important in maintaining good relationships, not only in your personal life but also with the people you interact with at different situations. If you cannot tell someone how you feel, it is not right on your part to expect them to know what is going on. Finally we are just mortal beings, not trained in mind reading. To a great extent, your interpretation of the world around you is dependent on your background, behaviour, customs, practices, beliefs & values; and is also the case of people you communicate with. The roots are so deep in your growing up that it influences the 5Ws & 1 H of Why, What, When, Where, Who & How, you think. Before you end up being myopic & conclude & pass a judgement on people, tell yourself to get a clear picture.

Once you have decided to open up as a primary rule, lock your ego in the shelf & and accept what others have to say, think or feel about what you said; & when this reality bites do not be judgemental. Time has always been a healer & as minutes, hours, days go by, things fall in place. Above all, along with being genuine, be honest too. Also tell yourself, “When in doubt ask to clear the air”. It takes hardly anything if you ask & understand something correctly. At least you can keep the understanding that can arise from the assumption you have made about what has bee said or meant at bay. Again, in communication along with speaking, listening is equally important. But listening should not be for the sake of it. Before you jump the gun, listen to what others are saying. For a while, forget about how you might be feeling, and try putting yourself in their shoes.

Be it the office or home, work or something personal, if you feel the need to say something that is important or bogging you down, squeeze out time to free your mind & then discuss it. At the end of the discussion it should not be more confusion & misunderstanding caused by a cluttered mind. Your existence is as unique as the people around you. While living in harmony the universal principle remains live & let live. Remember, people are not out to get you; if you think something is amiss, give them the benefit of doubt & a chance to clarify. It is easy to spoil relationships but building one is the art of communication.