Welcome to Ideothetic Flow! A passion project sharing my reflections on life, being a better person and building a kinder world.
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Hi!
I was plagued by a blocked ear over the last week. On its own it would be distressing (and also somewhat embarrassing) enough, but adding on the chaos of 2 crying kids in a car, and everyone speaking to me through masks, this experience became a huge test of mental strength.
I think it was particularly challenging also because the discomfort was internal. To anyone else, I looked like I was functioning normally. In truth, my hearing was dulled and it was likely I wouldn't hear you clearly unless I was focusing and the surroundings weren't too noisy.
Day to day life had to go on. There were still errands to do, children to care for, and people to meet. Part of my mental load came from the constant fear that I would be perceived to be ignoring or not listening carefully to someone. Even with Alcina there were several moments of frustration as she would say something to me in passing and I would not have heard a word of it.
Luckily I managed to get through those few days with only small misunderstandings. Coincidentally, I read about someone who ended up arrested because he could not comply with police instructions and looked like he was defying the police. Sometimes these misunderstandings could really blow up.
We never really understand another person's experience. When we speak, as soon as words leave our lips, we don’t know what enters the mind of the recipient. Was it too soft? Were they in a mental state to pay attention? What did they actually understand by what we said? These are all influenced by their physical state and the sum of their own life experience, which can never be sure of.
To bridge the gap of understanding, we are likely to use our own assumptions to complete the puzzle. We put in our own imagined experience, formed out of our own unique history and the norms of everyday living, to make what is hopefully an informed guess.
To an extent, this is perfectly reasonable, otherwise we would take forever to find out if and how we are understood.
But, we could overuse this shortcut, and stop bothering to take the effort to try and bridge the gap of understanding. Instead, we let our assumptions become expectations of how others should interact with us. When we are not understood or not heard, we get upset, believing that the other person has failed to meet our expectations of them.
Just as we do not fully understand the other person. It is likewise impossible for them to understand our expectations. Failure is almost inevitable. It is unreasonable to be disappointed later when our expectations aren't met.
We also have no certainty that our assumptions of how life should be experienced are even reasonable. How could we then impose them on others. It might even be so unreasonable that if we detached ourselves to observe our own expectations, we would be put off by ourselves.
Perhaps, instead of rushing to offense, or rushing to our own conclusions, we can afford to take more time to understand, and make sure we are understood.
Have a good week!
James
Other things…
Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable (behaviouralscientist.org)
If my earlier posts on discomfort resonated, you might like this piece on the importance of feeling uncomfortable so we can grow.
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Take care and have a good week!
James