Many of us know if (or recognize the possibility that) we're stubborn or pushy or have a bad temper or are short on patience, but how often do we come face-to-face with a character flaw that is disconcerting to us and that we realize is a reflection of what we do?
In Blink, Gladwell notes that when couples watched tapes of themselves fighting they saw characteristics they didn't know they were displaying. This is not entirely shocking. Who remembers the first time he/she heard a recording of his/her voice? We have an internal image of ourselves which covers just about every way we interact with others and while we can point out a scumbag, one probably doesn't realize it when one behaves like one. In fact, isolated behavioral incidents with justifications like "he pushed me to react this way", rather than long-standing patterns are probably easier to recognize for oneself.
I realized that contrary to being easy-going, I'm often just quiet (very different, though I do find it helps to keep my stress levels down), because when I'm not, I can be really annoying. I don't let careless comments go, instead I ask for people to qualify their statements and expect them to be perfect at all times. I think it's pretty obnoxious. Basically, I ran into someone who made me qualify every statement I made, made me specify any generalization and demanded that only perfect sentences come out of my mouth. And if they weren't perfect, that person would help me make them perfect. The individual seemed like a lot of fun otherwise, but made me never want to enter into any real level of discussion with that person again. And so I can imagine I may have made some of you feel.
Part of this is a reflection of my work, right? I write and edit documents. I edit people's words. I qualify everything to allow as little off-hand interpretation as possible. But I did this before. My parents always used to call me a lawyer (they saw this one coming a mile away) because I would even ask them to qualify statements or questions.
So from here on out, in any social setting (because in the office, I need to maintain that mindset), I'm going to be making a stronger effort to listen and respond rather than to listen, edit and respond. I hope it makes me a better friend.
In Blink, Gladwell notes that when couples watched tapes of themselves fighting they saw characteristics they didn't know they were displaying. This is not entirely shocking. Who remembers the first time he/she heard a recording of his/her voice? We have an internal image of ourselves which covers just about every way we interact with others and while we can point out a scumbag, one probably doesn't realize it when one behaves like one. In fact, isolated behavioral incidents with justifications like "he pushed me to react this way", rather than long-standing patterns are probably easier to recognize for oneself.
I realized that contrary to being easy-going, I'm often just quiet (very different, though I do find it helps to keep my stress levels down), because when I'm not, I can be really annoying. I don't let careless comments go, instead I ask for people to qualify their statements and expect them to be perfect at all times. I think it's pretty obnoxious. Basically, I ran into someone who made me qualify every statement I made, made me specify any generalization and demanded that only perfect sentences come out of my mouth. And if they weren't perfect, that person would help me make them perfect. The individual seemed like a lot of fun otherwise, but made me never want to enter into any real level of discussion with that person again. And so I can imagine I may have made some of you feel.
Part of this is a reflection of my work, right? I write and edit documents. I edit people's words. I qualify everything to allow as little off-hand interpretation as possible. But I did this before. My parents always used to call me a lawyer (they saw this one coming a mile away) because I would even ask them to qualify statements or questions.
So from here on out, in any social setting (because in the office, I need to maintain that mindset), I'm going to be making a stronger effort to listen and respond rather than to listen, edit and respond. I hope it makes me a better friend.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home