Did what you said mean what I think it meant or did it mean what you said?

Why do people have trouble saying what they mean? For several reasons. 1) Those who listen have the option of making judgments about those who are talking. 2) Those who are talking are sizing up how much of something to tell someone else, so they leave parts out thinking that the person would be bored with the topic or can't be trusted with the topic. 3) Those engaged in the conversational dance negotiate as they go. The speaker thinks, "I'll tell so much, see what the response is, and continue if I don't get the signal to quit." The other thinks "If the speaker goes over 10 seconds of running speech I will have to hide the yawn." 4) Those who are speaking want to hide the facts because they don't know the listener well, or they don't want to hurt the listener. 5) Those who speak think very little of the listener, so they don't want to waste their own precious time.




The list could go on. Mainly, the reason is that people don't want honesty; they want image. It is so refreshing to be around someone who is honest in speech. When that happens stress is reduced, and I feel compelled to be honest in response. We all get inklings when speech is less than honest. Even if we don't know all the speech markers for lies or know methods for telling deception, we can detect an atmosphere of judgment or unworthiness or boredom. It increases the tension in the air; stress heightens.

I have been in my current job for a little over 4 years. Truly it seems like 44 years, but that's because the first 3 years were so filled with people not saying what they meant that the atmosphere could have been cut with a knife. Now, it's different in my immediate working atmosphere. Days are long enough, but the communication is much more honest. There's laughter even. And where there's laughter, there's clear, honest communication. The stress has been cut in half.

I think it has been written somewhere about letting yes mean yes and no mean no. Oh yeah, the Good Book. It's amazing what happens to a person's inner being when that occurs.