PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT # 765: DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK
“Are you mad at me?” I asked my friend. I had been panicking about it, sure she had directed a comment my way, one for me to ponder (and freak out about). “No, I was talking about myself,” she laughed. “If I was mad at you, I’d just tell you.” Then I laughed, Whew. It’s good to surround yourself with people who will be honest. My level of distraction is very high right now, and we all tend to be in our own heads too much anyway. This could be happening all the time, to everyone. In fact, I really think it is. At a recent visit to the chiro, a woman burst into the door , visibly upset. “I was here at one! “ she berated the secretary. “Just like you said!” The secretary replied, with a look over her glasses, “Nooooo, I said we Can’t do one. We are at lunch then, everyday. What I said was we Cannot do one, but can do two…..” But the woman had heard only the part she wanted to hear. Hmmm, I thought. How many of us are walking around upset with someone, for something they said, when that was not at all what they meant in the first place? Do we remember to step outside of our own heads, and think about it from another perspective? I think we forget to be diplomatic, forget to be kindhearted, and go with whatever we’ve made up. I read a bumper sticker that stated “Don’t believe everything you think” and that is brilliant. Now I just have to remember it more often.
One of my writing exercises is to put yourself at the scene of the Rodney King beating. Write a blurb from the angle of a white bystander. Now a black one. Now the cop, now Rodney King. A woman watching from a window, a man from a car. All of these people in the same place, watching/feeling…there is no way each of them would give you the same account of what happened. A judge can call many witness’ to get an account of such a thing, but one never has an outsiders account when they need one in a conversation. We have to be our own witness protection program, and do a little re-winding of the tapes. We shouldn’t always believe ourselves, we aren’t always objective thinkers.
Our style of communication can also hopelessly compound conveyance; it’s easy to for things to get lost in the translation when you aren’t working from the same page to begin with. In England, people do something I love, called “taking the piss” which essentially means “rigorous teasing.” It can be lighthearted, and it can be brutal. But more often than not it is from a place of just having fun with each other. I’ve stopped doing this here, except with my ex-pat friends. We tease each other endlessly. Canadians are a more serious bunch. “What do you mean?” They say, or just give you a quizzical look, until you say, “I am only teasing you,” at which point they might give you a look that says, “you’re still an asshole.” Which, also could be true, depending on how you look at it.
It’s a wonder anyone can communicate at all. There are more ways to misinterpret what someone is saying now than ever. Not only are people losing their face to face skills (I’d rather email it….no time to actually talk…) they’d rather text than anything else. I get it, we are all busy, and a two second text fits in many little time slots. But it doesn’t always work out as it should. Last week my phone’s autocorrect told someone I was breaking ass, (instead of breakfast) that there were spies in the garden,that the black man was closing in.Huh? THAT IS NOT what I WAS SAYNG. It’s not just me having this problem. Check out www.damnyouautocorrect.com if you want to have a good laugh. Here’s one: example:
So really, all I have to say is this, and I will try to be clear. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT YOU MEAN. HARDLY EVER. TRY HARDER. And, in particular DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK. 95.3% of the time, it’s probably not true anyway.