As a teacher, I have to constantly come up with different ways to teach my children. A way to always get them to concentrate and listen is to play different educational games with them. When playing broken telephone, I repeat a sentence to a child in their ear, and then they pass the message on, to the next person. The last child to receive that message has to say it aloud. Whether it’s the same message that we started off with… is a different story.
I’ve found that we often misinterpret messages, because our generation is quick to use our phones and not confront situations. Social media has become our outlet on a filter based life. Yet, we standing on the other side of our phones, wondering why are we so broken?
What if, instead of having broken relationships, we had broken phones?
Don’t get me wrong, I communicate with the ones I love on a daily basis through social media and text messages. But when serious issues arise, I choose to confront them in person and in love.
Misunderstood messages have often lead to broken relationships in my life. Mainly, because I was reading to respond and not reading to understand. My hurt was always greater than the other persons hurts, but how can we measure hurt?
I’ve learnt two hard truths when confronting the fact that my phone needs to go and response need to change.
I need to take ownership of my words.
A friend sent me a text, and after reading it countless times, I still didn’t know how to respond to him. I knew in my heart of hearts that he didn’t mean what he had sent in the message, but it hurt. My response to the message was also based out of emotion and before I knew it, we were no longer friends. Most of the time we say things that we wish we could take back, that’s because we base what we say on how we feel. With a broken friendship and words I could not take back, I myself found that I also needed to change my response.
My words were under my ownership, and if I had had more control over them, maybe our friendship would have lasted. After months of not speaking we finally spoke face to face and resolved the issue. We could do this because we were mindful of what we had to say to each other, and we addressed the issue in love.
It’s better in person
I don’t want to admit it, but sometimes we need to see the hurt in the eyes of our friends. Why? Because it makes us realize that even though they might have hurt us, that something in us might also need to change. It’s better in person to talk it out, than to text it out and have more misunderstandings. A healthy, and honest relationship is better than a misunderstood response, or no relationship at all.
Today I still try to remind myself that I need to commuincate better. It’s hard in this technological world, but what I do know is that I don’t need to follow what the world has to offer. Communicating with people in my life has eased the burden of being liked on social media, and allowed me to build really good relationships.
I’m still a work in progress, and my phone isn’t broken yet. But what I do know, is that my phone is no longer a priority in my life.
How have you come up with ways to communicate better with the people in your life?