missunderstanding???

How to Avoid Misunderstandings
edited by Alexander Becker on October 04, 2006

Every once in a while you get into an argument. After a short time, your opponent du jour, sometimes even yourself, would step back and talk about misunderstanding and eventually end or postpone the fight.

Why do you think you always run into misunderstandings? Misunderstanding is failing to interpret correctly. You interpret best what is least definitive. Your misunderstandings are signs of mismatches, even cracks within your reality.

Misunderstanding is -- more often than not -- a mismatch between actual content and perceived way of delivery. While the content is almost never touched, fighting erupts over the presentation of the message. Misunderstanding is not about failing to receive all of the information. Misunderstanding is about receiving too much information to make sense of within your own context at this very moment.

Let's examine the various levels of detail and the respective perception involved. The problem is hidden in the details, in fact, the problem is the details. The more specific the provided details, the more you have to adapt your imagination and the resulting expectation to the message received.

Computer-generated film delivers only as much detail as needed to sufficiently communicate a given story. When you see a panorama shot, for example, you get a very rough scenery with minimal amounts of detail. Your mind takes over the decoration part and makes you perceive a rich scenery when in fact, you barely receive enough stimulation to not get overwhelmed. You appreciate the details because you are not fed them but instead, you create them yourself. Your mind completes the picture and as you zoom in and immerse yourself in the story, your mental experience matches and ultimately exceeds the actually seen imagery.

The more detail a situation provides, the more specific it is and the higher the chance of not exactly matching your preconceived interpretation. The most vague and unspecific arbitrary message reaching you comes with the opportunity to have you custom-color the pale information and personalize it with your own expectation. You are amazed by the highly targeted content that was destined only and especially for you. The same words delivered to you being in positive, allowing mode of expectation make you happy and leave you full of joy, in contrast, when received expecting an insult, you will get just that.

To counter and prevent misunderstanding, two courses of action are implicit --
Communicate as detailed as possible, including all possible misconceptions and discuss every single instance of being potentially unclear. Reiterate what you intend to communicate as often as you think is necessary to make your point bullet-proof.
Communicate with brevity and in generic terms in order to allow the recipient to fill in the positive or negative touch of the message. Your job is to predict the best moment for the message to arrive.

The first option -- reiterating endlessly -- is what most people do most of the time only to run into even more arguments. The second option -- let the recipient fill in his expectation -- is the smarter choice, leading to less arguments and ultimately eliminating fights over conflicting perceptions.

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hmm..dunno y ble ckp dgn my mum jd dia nk angin tbe2 kdg2. She always rse i tried 2 condemn her but that is definitely wrong.. i think she must try 2 be carefull when listen wht am i talking about or should i give the explanation clearly??? i will... she's my mother n i never want 2 do smthing that can hurt her heart, mind, soul n so on... uhuk3x. :-p .. at last i sent a sms to her (forgiveness). Hope she will understand what i'm trying 2 say.. mum i want u to know that i really2 lov u n i appreciate wht u have done. (u r my mum n u r my dad)

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........................................sorry......................................

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my english is so horrible.. uhuk.. (try 2 improve on it) aja aja fighting

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blame on me