Just because I’m upset at someone doesn’t mean they have to return my feelings. Or even pay any attention to me. In fact, you and I have every right to be ignored.
Actually, this isn’t about my own feelings. I’ve been having a conversation with someone who is upset with a local government. Mind you, the local government he’s upset with isn’t one where he lives. It’s a town in West Texas that he passes through from time to time and that has outlawed overnight parking except in authorized areas. But the conversation has put into focus the way electronic media have distorted our senses.
There was a time when people did business face to face. Over the years we’ve gotten away from that without realizing that emails are a sad substitute for looking someone else in the eye. Moreover, when we are writing an email the absence of the other party fools us into thinking we can be harsher and more insulting than we would ever dream of being if we had to look that person in the eye when we insulted them. Email dehumanizes. And because it is a remote medium there’s no reason on earth the person we are trying to persuade needs to explain themselves in full, or even at all. We allow our selves to get worked up, and then when someone else fails to do what we want them to do we get irritated and angry.
Why?
I’m no shrink. But it surely seems to me that the more we rely on electronic media the less aware we are of the assumptions we make.
- Just because I think I’m being treated unfairly does not mean that I am.
- Just because I think someone else should change their mind does not mean they are under any obligation to do so.
- Wordy emails rarely persuade — people are all in too much of a hurry.
- There are letters (emails) we should put into a drawer and sit on for a day, or a week, or a month before sending them. But because email is almost instantaneous we rarely do. We click send and fail to reconsider that sentence that is a little too harsh or the bogus assumption that will blow our credibility. Computers may “think” fast, but that does not mean that the operators are up to the same speed.
- Electronic media can create far more correspondence than anyone wants to read. If we organize a boycott what makes us think that anyone will bother reading the emails. We all have spam filters on our email — I personally trash a couple dozen emails a day that are junk/spam/unsolicited offers. I refuse to waste my time just because someone I don’t know thinks I should.
- Voicemail messages do not carry the same weight when left by strangers than they do when they are left by friends. I don’t answer every voicemail from a stranger; I doubt you do either. Why should I expect that someone else will answer mine? Especially if I am upset, want them to do something they dont want to do, or if I come across as a crackpot?
If you look around at the national political scene you see a nation crippled by officials who take themselves so seriously that they cannot compromise for the sake of the greater good. It’s good to have principles; this would be a sad nation if all our politicians had NO principles. But, to borrow an old cliche, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water; and maturity — individual maturity, and group maturity — is about having the wisdom to know that to govern effectively requires that all parties have their needs met. Not as WE see them, but as THEY see them.
It seems no one is listening to the other side; there is always another side; and too often the truth lies someplace between the two and is a third side.
It’s hard to realize that changes arise because of past history. Something happens and we see that as a change to something we have known in the past. What we forget is that it’s pretty certain that whatever change there may have been did not arise out of a vacuum. Something preceded the change. There was a history behind that action too.
It’s not surprising that humans (myself included) tend to view the world from our own point of view. What other point of view do we actually know anything about? So, if someone keys my car, to ME that is the beginning of a chain of events. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not about to condone keying someone’s car. But most likely the person with the offending key recently went through something that irritated them enough to act out. We may know nothing about the event; the event may even be irrelevant to us (maybe he/she just got dumped) but there was something that gave that action a push.
- The neighbor with the loud stereo at 2 a.m. may be drunk.
- The politician who votes against my cause may have donors to his campaign who favor a different law.
- Local businesses may think they are losing money because of a bootleg operation — putting them at a competitive disadvantage; or they may be pushing to achieve a competitive advantage for themselves.
But none of these examples will be corrected by sending off a steaming hot email. Each instance needs a different sort of resolution that sending an email will not further.
Sending off that email may make us feel better; but it guarantees no resolution. And there is no guarantee that the other party will respond at all, or will respond in kind.
Sending off that email just gives us the right to be ignored.
If you want change — go talk to someone — face to face. You’ll find it’s much harder to be ignored when you are standing in the other person’s office. You’ll find you aren’t as snippy as if you wrote that email. You’ll find that the other party has a valid viewpoint — even if it differs from your own. And you’ll find that the only way to make both parties happy is to find a happy in-between.
There’s a lot of talk about the freedom we enjoy in this country, but not much about the responsibility that comes along with it. Freedom isn’t about whether I have the right to do as I please; freedom is about whether I will give that right to someone else who wants to behave differently. It seems so popular for people to be upset by the actions of others; but not so popular for those same people to allow others to upset US.
Ten Things I Have Learned
