Do I Understand You Correctly?

Do I Understand You Correctly?

Such stupidity and ignorance! Their eyes are closed, and they cannot see. Their minds are shut, and they cannot think.

Isaiah 44:18

On a downtown bus, just as it is pulling into its next stop, a woman stands up, slaps the face of the man next to her, and hurries to the exit. Each of the passengers who saw what happened reacts in their own way. A middle-aged man feels sad for the man who was slapped. A younger woman is frightened. A teenage boy is angry. Another woman feels excited. How could the same event trigger such an array of varying emotions? The answer is found in self-talk.

The middle-aged man who reacted with sadness thought to himself, He’s lost her and he’ll never get her back.

The fearful woman thought, She is going to really pay a price for that tonight when he sees her at home.

The angry teenager says to himself, She humiliated him; like most women, she must be a real jerk.

The woman who felt excited said to herself, Serves him right. What a strong woman; I wish I was more like that.

In each case, the event was almost instantly interpreted, judged, and labeled. And each individual’s unique self-explanation resulted in a distinctive emotional experience—sadness, fear, anger, or excitement. Truth is, the emotional consequences of an event like this vary as much as the people observing it.

This variation is exactly why, even in relationships with the people we love the most, we must clarify our perceptions before we jump to faulty conclusions. How often have you made an assumption that led you down an unnecessarily bumpy conversation with your spouse? We’ve all done it. And often, that mistake can be remedied or avoided altogether with a simple question: Do I understand you correctly?

When the mind is thinking, it is simply talking to itself.

—Plato