Why? Why is it such a big deal to me? Yes I'm a writer, and effective communication is my job, but I've also realized that some of my most difficult experiences in life have been a result of bad communication. For example, tonight I tried calling a girl with whom I previously had a relationship, while we had currently been trying to rectify things. But the fact is that I broke up with her the first time because or her unwillingness to communicate, and things didn't change the second time around. And thus tonight's phone call. Unsurprisingly, she didn't answer, so I left a message saying that I was tired of being treated this way. I said the ball was in her court and that if she wanted to talk about it she should call me; otherwise I was just going to forget about it.
I can give you more examples of me being frustrated by bad communication, such as most of the Facebook threads leading up to the election. Actually, nearly all of my remaining examples come from heated Facebook debates where at least one side is so adamant in its position that they will even use fallacious and sometimes unethical strategies to silence the other side. But that's not how you make things work. That's not how you solve life's problems.
I'll tell you how to solve life's problems: Talk. It's not that hard. Don't yell, don't complain, don't point fingers, and don't shut down when you feel unsure about how to respond when things aren't going your way. The women really do have it right in this respect, which I realize is probably why most of my friends are female. Talking it out is often ridiculed as a waster of time that could be spent solving the world's problems with action. But action only works if people can agree on what that action should be. And you can't agree on anything unless you talk.
I know this is small in comparison to the world's problems, but I have a great example of what good communication can do. I have a really good friend who likes to talk things out--so much so that when I first knew her, I would have told you that she was the most socially anxious person I had ever met. It wasn't until recently that I realized the only difference between her and most other people we knew was her willingness to express herself--her fears and desires, her values, even her paranoia.
Over time, this friend's consistent and uncommon openness has charmed itself into my life and the lives of many others, simply because her honesty about how she views the world on a regular basis only makes the rest of us feel normal for feeling the way we do. She's not mean about it, and she's not overbearing. She just talks. And because she's willing to communicate, her own anxiety has improved drastically, as she has seen how favorably people respond to her. It has been a great example to me. It's probably why I finally stood up for myself tonight without getting nasty. Maybe it will help my ex in her future relationships, or maybe it will help me approach conflict in my future relationships with more confidence and self-respect.
I don't know how to end this, and you may be hoping that I'll connect it to bigger problems like politics or the world's moral decay. I really could, but I don't want to open another can of worms. I will say that most of us have so much bottled up inside that's making us angry because we don't feel like we can express it in a manner that the rest of the world will find acceptable. That is what is killing us. But if we can tune out the rage-filled reactions of those whose opinions really don't matter in the grand scheme of things--or at least accept that most of them are just as scared, disillusioned, and wishful for a better world as we are--then I think we will find a host of people who sincerely want to understand us better as well as be understood better. The only way to find out is to talk.
