One of the disturbing things I have been thinking about for a long time is how we manage to communicate with others. I don’t know since when this problem has started, or it is just me that I am focusing too much on it but it is a topic which I wanted to discuss for a long time.
Having conversations is no more about sharing ideas, it seems it is changing to be about winning the argument and forcing ideas.
Within work circles I notice people talking about some tools and techniques and suddenly everyone starts to take sides, everyone has an opinion they want to force.
Trying to meet friends and hearing about the best shop, the best skin care products, the new trend we should follow and of course everyone is forcing their opinions.
Reading online, I see articles about the best books you should read, the best tools you should try, and so on.
Yes it may seem something good, like people are trying to do things better and giving us advice, but let us think more about how this communication is done, it is good that we care but it is also important how we do it.
I have been thinking about this for along time, maybe since college times, I felt like people sometimes talk just to let their idea forced on others, which at that time didn’t bother me that much, but as I started working and meeting more people, it made me think more about it, because unlike college, at work these kind of conversation will effect other things, and this is why I decided to write about it.
It seems that our conversational culture is about winning battles, whenever a topic about something comes in, everyone is trying to talk about their experiences and knowledge and they tend to make rules as what they like is the best, and what they don’t like is the worse, or they might have read about something so they will deny any other idea.
I used to manage myself to just listen to these kinds of conversations and to not participate, but for a couple of times I couldn’t stop myself from getting into these battles, and guess what? It didn’t feel satisfying at all, it feels as if I won the battle but didn’t make my idea across, and usually it is time wasting, because if someone tries to win the conversation and you agree with them the conversation might end at 15 min, but if you try to argue God knows when one of you will surrender.
Shouldn’t we share and learn from each other instead of forcing?
The real benefit we get from having conversations is sharing ideas and thoughts, what if the solution I am looking for is part of the other person’s idea, and their solution is part of my idea. But if we always end up forcing our ideas we will forget about the main points and just focus on winning the argument.
What I am trying to say is we should think more about how we have our conversations and how we should communicate in the two directions of sending and receiving, instead of winning.
And to make a conclusion I tried to make some points that I found very useful and I will try to keep these in mind whenever I find myself on one of these battles
- Conversation battles don't end, when taking part in one means I dropped off my idea, and I am just focusing on winning.
- Listening is the KEY, showing people that I understand their idea first will make them feel my empathy, and after they finish I can say mine, they will totally agree without making any effort.
Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash
