What we have here, in our personal, social, political, and other relationships, is a failure to communicate. We cannot possibly know the life experiences of others, or how they interpret our words, and sometimes they do not know why they react the way they do, either. Should we not say anything then, for fear of hurting or insulting each other? No, but we may want to search our own heads for why certain things set us off.
Case in point. When I was younger, people would tell me that "you need to go back to school and finish your degree!" I found myself angered by this advice for the longest time. Then it dawned on me that what I heard was "you have no right to succeed unless you do so the way everyone else does [has to]!" From that point on I was no longer angry when someone made the suggestion of returning to college, I just ignored it.
Let us consider another example. I am not religious, but my in-laws are. When they say "we pray for you," I know that what they are saying is that believe that my soul will go to Hell because I do not accept Jesus as my savior and I therefore cannot possibly have a relationship with God. This comes across to me as a superiority complex, and the remark as terribly condescending. They are entitled to their beliefs, and I accept that, but I do not believe they respect my beliefs, and that is disheartening. I could also be wrong in my assertion of their intent. The fact I recognize internally how I am interpreting their words makes it vastly easier to tolerate and I shrug it off.
The idea for this blog post came about after the conclusion of the National Football League championship games, and a friend on social media tried to joke by implying that she did not know one sports team from another and could care less. Her intent at poking fun at her "own ignorance" as she explained later, did not translate well and I called her out (perhaps improperly) for her arrogance because the implication I heard was that "better" people choose to ignore team spectator sports all together. "We just can't be troubled with something so insignificant" is the sentiment that was ringing in my ears. We remain friends and just agree to disagree on this one admittedly trivial aspect of life.
My parents divorced when I was eleven years old, after a two-year separation. Back in the 1970s there was no blueprint for how to have a civil divorce, not that legal nuances change the behavior of the parties involved, but I recall how bitterly disappointed I was that the decree did not end the conflict. The phrase "best interest of the child" became a joke to me. It is not sufficient for one spouse to be the best thing for the child, the other parent must be portrayed as the worst thing for the child.
Here is a less personal example. I read recently an article on "Five Ways to Make the Outdoors More Inclusive". One of the people involved, Carolyn Finney, said this: "The term ‘outreach’ should be obsolete because it’s a one-sided term. It says, ‘I get to show my power, and feel good about it, because I reached out to you, and I brought you to my table. I didn’t have to change anything, I just had to put a chair at the table.’ People don’t want to give up their power. The question is what power are they willing to give up? If you say none, then that’s where we’re different. Then nothing changes.”
A friend's Facebook post relating to gender identification sparked many heated responses, but one of the minor points that I thought was a profound commentary on gender was my friend's use of "ovaries" and "testes" instead of "vagina" and "penis." That simple change removes all overtones of sex and power from the conversation. Brilliant.
The point is that we can all be guilty of manipulating others with our words. Sometimes we are well aware we are doing so, and sometimes we are not. The challenge is to be more self-aware, and to call others out when they are abusing us or others verbally. Yes, we may be wrong in our accusations, but then we at least have an understanding and can apologize. It is worth the investment of our time to do this, and it increases our sphere of interpretation from that point forward.
Please consider sharing your own examples of misunderstanding or misinterpretation in the comments. I am certain we can all relate and learn from each other.
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