hallo, hallo?

Communication:  easy or hard?


I was thinking about that lately.


I usually feel like Communication is an area where I feel comfortable:  "I can handle, no problem..."  But still there are some instances, where you can tell someone something, and they'll attack the sentence you said and start jumping up and down on it ('ok, I think it's dead now...') and you're left with the feeling of,


"I made a statement that could not have been simpler, or offered with more politeness and goodwill, toward the goals of general cooperation and base-covering;


in response, war has apparently been declared;


where did I go wrong?"


(War declared:  on the sentence, or on the person speaking the sentence, i.e. me -- not sure which...)


_________________________________


And then I think, ok, if I feel confident in communication skills and this happens to me, imagine how stress-filled people must feel, who don't think communication is their strong suit, and yet they are called upon to communicate something.  That must be hard.


There are lots of things many of us aren't good at, but the blessing (the thing to be thankful for, every day not just Thanksgiving) is that most of the time we're not called upon to do them -- tightrope-walking, calf-roping, spy-catching....


Where does the difficulty in Communication (between English-speaking people) come from?  I try to figure it out --


Inexplicable 21st-century stress-and-tension, maybe...








-30-