The
art of communication involves the equal and opposite action of talking and
listening. Both are very simple on the surface but are complex in reality
because talking is not just verbal communication while listening involves more
than just hearing the word but the tone, the pitch, the body language, the uncommunicated
word, the restriction of closeness of contact.
Most people of great words are
not good listeners and most people that talk less are not great listeners
themselves. Most of us often carry preconceived ideas about situation and
whether mighty in words or not we come to easily analyse people, word spoken or
unspoken through such preconceived idea. Because we live in a fast paced world
where people are expected to quickly think through situation we are mostly
prejudiced to look at situation from one’s perspective, while a lot of people
claim mastery of listening but people that listen are those who try to see
situation from the perspective of the person communicating or talking (the
verbal and non-verbal communication). I have started praising myself for being
a good listener because I have the ability to communicate the deepest of
thoughts, to ruminate of matters and try to understand people’s perspectives of
things but I was startled in the past one week about my limitation and my crass
incompetence in understanding people and their views. I have continuously hurt
my very wife (then she was my wife to be) with a statement I have continuously
uttered ‘don’t do this thing alone’. I have actually justified myself times
without number that what I was communicating was ‘don’t do this alone but let
me in on the whole picture’. Few times I have actually completed the statement
but on numerous occasion I had only said the ‘why are you doing it alone’. I have
only completed the statement when I am trying to justify my actions before her.
She felt hurt because those statements insinuated that she was the one pushing
for things to be done and by so doing she was pushing me. In my own mind I felt
she should let me into the whole situation so that we can solve the problem
together. Alas I was only communicating from the perspective from which I have
been wired. I have been talking about the problem with her while not going into
the nitty-gritty of finding solutions to the problem. I have been using the
avoidance tactics because the money side of the solution/situation does not
reside with me and the male ego has gotten on my way and instead of tackling
and discussing how to solve the problem I was only exaggerating it and it was
causing her a lot of headache. The money solution lay with her at that point
and my male testosterone was actually not comfortable with that and in my
innermost mind I thought she was the problem and that she was pushing me too
hard because she knew I had no money. Alas when I spurt out for the first time
that ‘how do we go about it since I had no money’, then and only then was when
solution came. What she had wanted to hear from me all the time was simply
that. She had plans in mind but she never wanted to push it down on me so that
she won’t be confirming the statement I have been making from the beginning
‘why are you trying to do it alone’. That statement was hurting her badly and
causing her sleepless nights. We discussed the challenges and how we were going
to solve it. The erstwhile big problem now had solutions. I was relieved and
for the first time in a couple of weeks she had a very sound sleep. Can you see
how my ego had robbed a wonderful soul of sleep because my mind has been
conditioned to think and receive information in a certain way? Can you see how
I have robbed myself of happiness and her sweetness and all the while I had
thought that she was the problem because I have gone about with some principles
and theories about communication which I have failed to implement in reality
but quick to display as knowledge and even public consumption.. Even what I
call public consumption is a show of knowledge which most times do not benefit
the people listening because it does not have practicality. The art of
listening is a continuous process of learning which I am not sure any human has
developed mastery.
When
couples have problem and solution seems not coming because the two could not
agree, sex does not solve the uncommunicated part of the problem or even the
not well communicated part of the problem. Sex only act as an avoidance tactics
because the problem is still there and would still surface and most likely in a
more volatile manner. I suppose couples (or even people dating) should not just
jump into sex to calm frayed nerves but to do more of critical thinking and
deep soul searching in those periods. If sex has been used to solve problems in
relationship, the marriage contracted might be heading for doom except the
couple decides to start fixing their problems rather than just rubbing their
wounds with sex. The same thing goes for married couples. Even after having sex
discuss the problem because if one think the problem is solved after sex then
one is disillusioned
Comments
Post a Comment