Sometimes, I like to think that everybody having opinions and traits, peculiar to themselves, as beautiful as it is, is one of the reasons for so many misunderstandings we encounter in the world today. When I'm having a conversation with someone and we are conflicting, I sometimes wonder how life would have been if we all were forced to think the same way. It wouldn't be nice honestly because the beauty that is conversing, would never exist in the first place. The thoughtful daily post community posed a prompt:
Do you feel like others can understand what you're trying to communicate to them? Whether here on our blockchain... or in our personal lives. What ways do you ensure everyone can understand you? How can you make it better?
I like having conversations with new people. People I had no idea what their mentality is like, prior to the conversation. Having conversations with people like these, even when I find myself unsure, it thrills me because I get to learn. It thrills me because I get to practice honing my conversation skills. It thrills me to know what and how to go about improving my sociability.
When conversing with people, I try making myself the listener, 90% of the time. When people speak to me, no matter how conflicting my opinion is, I listen so I get an insight to their way of thinking and how exactly I should pass my opinion across. This is something that helps me find out how different my way of thinking is, from that of my partners and how exactly we can reach a truce as soon as possible. As diverse as our stances could be, if I really want them to understand me, I think the first thing should be making an effort to understand them, shouldn't it? So, I love to listen a lot when conversing with people, that way, I understand them first before projecting my own opinions.
It's no news that when I was younger, I read a lot. This exposed me to words at a very early age. At school then, I had no issues with my language. I spoke freely, using words as I chose and my peers didn't seem to have trouble keeping up. Then, I changed schools and that was when I realized that my grammar was way higher than the one kids my age used. Then, I wouldn't make up to two sentences without someone asking me the meaning of a word. As a result, I noticed some people began to keep away from me because according to them, I made them feel not up to par. That was when I began to tone down my use of words. I began expressing myself, using simpler words, just so I could fit into everybody's level of understanding.
Growing up, I soon enough realized that breaking your words into simpler fragments wasn't what mattered the most. Rather it is how clear and concise you are, in defining your opinion. When you're asked a question, and are probably given a word count, some of us find ourselves beating around the bush and that way, our opinions could be conflicting. How do people understand you, when you're contradicting yourself, just because you want to say more than you have to say? Fitting your choice of words, with that of your audience, is necessary but it works better when you are concise in airing your opinions.
Although I'm still learning in every aspect of my conversation honing skills, I think one area I need to work on is my expressions. I was conversing with someone one day and he said 'You know there's really no need for you explaining, if you think of me that way'. When I asked what he meant, he mentioned that I already displayed on my face, that I thought he was foolish, for having to explain such a thing to him and that wasn't the case. Currently, that is one major problem I've faced when conversing with people. My facial expressions appear wrongly and tend the pass a wrong message to the other party but that's something I'm working on and hope to get better at, in the nearest future.
So, there! I think I've exhausted all I have to say about this prompt. If you have opinions you'll like to share, on this topic, you're very free to participate in the prompt.
Thanks for reading.
First image was generated using meta.ai and the second image is mine.