| Listen to the story |
Walking along the banks of river Thames in central London, seeing the ever changing skyline fly by, discovering quirks along the way and discussing this and that. This is a routine for us.
My good friend M. and I have met at work at some stage of our careers. Doesn’t really matter at which corporate where-ness and when. Let’s just say we connected, kindred spirits and such had recognised each other. And though moving on and quitting jobs and changing our respective lives, we stayed in contact. And we have become accustomed to meeting up on a fortnight, sometimes only monthly. And we walk. And we chat.
During one of those talking walks, my friend told me a story I found hilarious.
She was back home over Christmas. Seeing her family in the US. Chicago in fact. She has a big family. Four sisters and most of them have children. And so she took some of those little nieces and nephews out for a trip visiting New York. Change! What a wonderful adventure with the aunt you admire and to be shown different things and an exciting world you don’t know yet.
When I was a kid, I did worship those little trips similar to what my friend offered her family. Back then for me, it was only a short cycle trip to a different village in southern Germany’s countryside. But hey, it was with my cool aunt, that’s what made it special. I felt I was a grown up and taken serious and it was super-interesting and wild (as in an eight-year old definition, that was). Magic!
So my friend M. invites her little relatives to New York for such an outing and away from the usual stuff at home. A lot of cool activities, staying in an awesome hotel, doing karaoke, visiting NY landmarks, doing the Central Park carriage ride, you name it. One occasion was to dine in a really authentic and renowned Chinese restaurant in New York.
The dining room is simple, steaming of freshly cooked food, and very genuine as most eaters are Chinese people – adding credit to the outstanding quality of the place.
When walking into the venue, one of the little nephews cries out:
“Ha, Aunt M., well done for bringing us here. Hope you speak Spanish!”
At this point I stopped walking and looked at my friend. Slightly confused, I was asking: “What does the little one mean by that? Did I miss anything? I thought you said you were in a Chinese restaurant?!” I really did not understand.
My friend was smiling. In a calming gesture putting her hand on my arm, she says: “Oh, darling, no, you didn’t miss anything. It’s just that this seven-year-old has no idea of the concept of languages yet.” On this revelation I was bursting out laughing and we giggled while revisiting the scene.
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This chat made me think though.
When walking back home, it began to dawn on me. I was laughing at the little one, but truth to be told it’s me, not the kiddo. I am just having the ignorant perspective of what I take as given as a grown up. Of what I have accumulated as universal and accessible information pool over many years. Of what I think is generally known, or let’s say expected to be known and normal!
Armed with this brainwave I widened my investigation perimeter: How often and in other situations did I assume I knew? How often was I thrown on a distorted thought process because I thought I knew it all? How often was I offended because I thought THEY should know what I am talking about?
As in talking to friends who might not know you that well. You tell your story. As in you curate the idea of your story. There’s an important issue you are facing relating to a specific part of your life. But the others don’t fully understand what that entails. It’s beyond you. Why don’t they get it?
Or as in how often was I unable to sleep as I filled in the blanks of worrying situations and creating my own vortex of doom versions? Lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Instead of understanding and accepting that there were unknowns I needed to find out. Or acknowledging there were unknown factors potentially simply out of my control to influence!
Or like in one of those business situations. You present. You know it all. It is all so clear. From your perspective. There’s only little time I have allocated to the other side, the audience. I want to bring my message across. Important for me. It is really about me and my message, right? Then things go south. You didn’t connect. Why in all of the world? Everything was so well prepared. You don’t understand.
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Much later I realised that I had forgotten to set the scene in those unfortunate situations. I didn’t clarify what was common ground. I just assumed that everyone was on the same page.
This is what I learnt: There is no common frame of mind. Never. We are all so busy and preoccupied with our own stuff. You have to call it out. It might be different by cultural prerequisites or nationally driven manners. Yet, it still holds true that we should make time to make it clear where one is coming from. So it will be easier for your counterpart to understand why it is what you want.
If your asks or thoughts are agreeable to the other person, now, that’s a completely different story. It’s another step in our communication journey.
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The first part though I feel is this one:
Let’s ask. Let’s check out if you are on the same page. Disclose who you and what your circumstances are. What you want. What makes you feel the way you do. Explain yourself in gentle, direct, demanding, wordy, flowery, mysterious, thoughtful, whatever-suits-you-or-the-situation language.
Then it’s time for your conversation partner*s to take their turn. By now, you should have earned some trust and the others should feel comfortable opening up and giving you the opportunity to judge who’s really in front of you.
Empathy and tit-for-tat communication will help to establish if there’s any of the famous common ground. It will help to map out intersections in your very own virtual Venn diagram and will help to decide if you should be climbing the next stage of your relationship, or not!
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Eliminating or quantifying the unknown around us, seem to me like two sides of the same coin:
If you don’t empathise with your fellow beings, don’t ask or invite them to share, you are in the dark and miles away from genuine connection. And if you assume that others know your situation and if you don’t make the world known your feelings, the world cannot ping back the way you might expect or want it to.
Or the other way round: We just don’t know things until we know.