Photo by Adam Muise on Unsplash
When she was little, my daughter was obsessed with heavy earth moving equipment. Dump trucks, road graters, concrete mixers and so forth made her yell with delight. We spent time in the car traveling back and forth from preschool and work and she was an alert participant in the world. She would gaze out the window and comment on the world going by. “Cows,” she’s say. “Barn, doggies, peoples, flowers. Deer Mommy, deer!” I have fond memories of these times as does she.
I’m rarely use air conditioning preferring to drive with the windows down even in the sultry heat of summer. One particularly hot day we stopped at a light by a construction site and there, to her delight, were two huge dump trucks and several construction workers only a few feet from our car. Clear as a bell in her sweet childish voice she pointed at the dump trucks and squealed at the construction guys, “Dumb F**ks! Mommy, look dumb f**ks! Dumb f**ks!” I must have paled noticeably as the construction workers looked disbelievingly our way. With a weak smile and at cheerleader volume I screamed “Yes honey, those are very big DUMP TRUCKS! Most DUMP TRUCKS aren’t that big, are they? There two red DUMP TRUCKS, aren’t there?” She laughed and clapped her hands as mercifully the light turned green. People, I’d broken out in a cold sweat and had visions of being dragged out of the car by some very PO’d workers.
I keep this story in mind to remind myself that we don’t always understand exactly what someone is trying to tell us. You gotta make sure you heard it right. If something sounds weird or hostile, pause and try not to jump to conclusions. Check things out, like: does this make sense in the context, tone and conversation? That way you can skip the apology if they were just talking about a cool dump truck.
Have you ever had a situation where you completely misunderstood what someone said? What happened? Did you have the confidence to stop and consider what was really being said? Leave me a comment and let me know. I love to hear from you! And while you’re at it, head over to:
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xo Z
