You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

Some people are amazed there are so many disagreements in the world; I'm amazed there are so few.  If you really stop to think about it, I don't know how anyone agrees on anything.  Everything we hear, we hear through the filter of our own experience and internal dialogue.  Unless the speaker and the listener have identical experience and internal talk, they are never going to hear the exact same conversation.  It may be close enough for horseshoes, but it is not the same.  That may matter and it may not.  Where it matters most is when emotions are involved.  Today, I was reminded of no less than four occasions where it mattered very much; two involved me and two involved friends of mine.  Just so I don't "out" any of my friends unnecessarily, I'll use only mine.  A little over a year ago, I was involved in a very emotionally laden and delicate negotiation to bid on training contract for the institute of which I am a member.  We don't need to go into a lot of detail, but suffice it to say that it was really ugly and emotionally draining.  As the negotiations were ongoing, I kept our governing board informed and let them know how difficult and exhausting the negotiations were becoming (at least I thought I did...).  After we got the contract, I asked for additional help in planning the training itself because I was worn out - and got no reply and no additional help.  I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, but soldiered on, asking one of my good friends to help "unofficially." (You know who you are, and I do love you for all you do!).   I felt pretty unappreciated.  Fast forward one year.  When I was in San Francisco two weeks ago, I ended up having breakfast with two members of the governing board.  We started talking about what the negotiations were like a year ago, and how really difficult and tiring they were.  Mid way through the conversation, both of them said that they had no idea that things had been that bad, and they were sorry I had to go through it, and they really appreciated my efforts.  After I finished staring at them like they had two heads each, I started thinking.  Did I not express myself a year ago?  No, I did.  Was I clear?  I thought I was, but obviously what was clear to me was not clear to my audience.  I was too caught up in my emotional drama a year ago to check in to make sure what I said and what was heard were the same.  What was different in San Francisco was that I changed my internal dialogue, and it opened me to the possibility that they weren't uncaring but just didn't understand.   I was then able to express myself so that my audience could really hear what I was saying.  It took a year, but I felt heard and my efforts appreciated.   Really communicating is hard and takes lot of work.  That's probably why most of us do it so poorly - we don't really realize how important it is, and aren't willing or don't have the energy to make the effort all of the time.  If we did, there'd probably be less work here in the Trenches.