ME (I see, hear and speak)
26. 06. 2024
Every person knows a few dozen people. We see them regularly, listen to them and talk to them. And they have at least a dozen friends of their own. In fact, we can see very quickly that we are influencing thousands of people in one way or another. And that is why what we say matters. That is why it is important that we talk much less than we watch and listen. When we speak, our words must have meaning. They must reflect us, our thinking, not what the other person wants to hear. We say what we want to say at the moment, if it is relevant and necessary, of course.
I like to observe people and the way they communicate, both vocally and in their expressions. People say a lot by their behaviour, by their stance, by the way they speak, by the tone of their speech. These are all things that we need to pay attention to when we are away from home. When we are outside the domestic environment. There are times when it is difficult to say something to the person you hold dear. Maybe we have the wrong idea that we have to guard these people in a way that we keep things from them. That they don’t need to know. In fact, we often think that we are not the ones who have to tell them something unpleasant. Think about the consequences of not telling them and no one else telling them? That is what you should be afraid of. What if that person never finds out? Or worse, that they find out when it is too late? I myself want people to tell me things as soon as possible. Without gossip, in a respectful way and only what are the facts. Simply because I am like that. I will never keep things that I myself would like to hear from others. I can say that this is one of my basic principles. I believe that a conversation can solve many things. Sincerity is the highest degree of love.
A similar principle that I want to apply to myself is that if I don’t say something (for whatever reason), then I never mention it. A week is a period of time in which to sort things out. Then it becomes a big emotional burden, often too big. And people who carry things inside usually find it difficult to bear that burden. A lot of little things accumulate in a year, let alone in five, ten years. If you don’t clear it out right away, the junk builds up. These things start to weigh us down and eat us up from the inside. And when one does not have a tidy attic, we know what comes next. Nothing good, or rather nothing you can dig out of quickly. Some people expect mental health problems to go away easily. How can they, if they accumulate over years. It amazes me when people think that these things will be solved by pills. Absolutely not. It is necessary to train. You have to work on it. You have to think, you have to talk. But first, observe and learn to listen to other people who have something intelligent to say. And if you know how to observe and listen, you can quickly see who these people are. Stick with them. Otherwise, there are experts. If a profession exists, it is needed. And it is not a taboo subject, as most Slovenians think, or better as most Slovenians are brought up.
In all my years in the business (and some of it personal) world, I have had the opportunity to observe and listen to the right people. People who have something to say. I guess in a way I have picked them out and filtered out the rest. Unfortunately, or fortunately? If I have learned anything, it is the real meaning of conversation. What conversation really is. It is not a competition, as I thought in my teenage years. It’s not being better than your interlocutor. It’s not finding fault in the other person’s speech. Although I honestly still do that sometimes nowadays, unfortunately. But only because I hold Slovenian dear to my heart. I appreciate more and more that I speak and use the Slovene language. Because it is a very rich language and it saddens me that it is being lost. That more and more foreign words are being used, more and more English words are being transferred into Slovene, even though we have beautiful Slovene words with the same meaning. But that is a subject for another reflection. Conversation is about finding and focusing on content. It is listening to what the other person actually has to say. It is observing their emotions. It is empathising with them. What he is experiencing. What is happening to him. What has brought him to this point. Listening is not about thinking about what we are going to say or how we are going to help in any way with advice. No. It is focusing on the words of the other person, on the way they are expressed. It is reading the emotion on their face. It is the facial expressions. If we really focus on all of that, then our words, our actions, will come spontaneously. They will follow what has been said. I myself am often silent for a long time. I need some time to collect my thoughts, as we call it. My brain needs time to glue the picture and the tone together. To sort out what they have seen and what they have heard. Often, especially in difficult moments, words are completely superfluous. A touch, a hug, a look… are more powerful than words. Think about what you yourself need in such moments. Someone to listen to you, to look you in the eye, to hold you. To comfort you. Advice is not wanted at that time. Last but not least, ask yourself what kind of courage the person you are talking to has had to muster to trust you. How difficult it is for him, what he is going through, what is eating him, what he is not comfortable with, what he has had to go through to choose you. He chose you to trust you. Ask yourself this.
For myself, I can say that I have changed in this respect. I have changed a lot. Several things have contributed to that. One of them is writing. I recommend it to anyone who would like to do something on themselves. For yourself. For everyone around you. I recommend it to anyone who wants their loved ones to see you as someone they can rely on in the long term. After all, writing is also recommended by experts in various fields. Writing allows you to develop your thinking, it enriches the ways in which you can describe things that are difficult to describe. There is no human being who can explain even the simplest concepts at any given moment, let alone the more difficult ones. I am amazed again and again how people can say nothing, or close to nothing, about quite ordinary concepts. They talk a lot, of course, but there is little substance in it all. In fact, they say very little. What is responsibility? What is quality? What is emotion and what is feeling? How can one be responsible if one does not even know how to explain it, how to describe it to others. Read the explanations of the wise men. How these concepts are interpreted by people who have been proven to know something. You will be amazed. They can be very simple, above all they can be very profound. These kinds of explanations have been worked out over years, decades, centuries. Some of them for millennia. If something has held up over the years, it cannot be a waste.
Many wise words have been preserved over the centuries. Most probably in the book of all books, the Bible. I do not see this book purely religiously, but above all as an infinite source of life. The books of the Old Testament are a collection of many of the thoughts of savants that have been produced over the centuries. They bring many stories that illustrate what is right and what is wrong. What and how man should develop, behave, cooperate, build… Truly amazing stories with a profound message if only you want to accept and understand it. If one prejudges and has a lack of understanding of these stories, then one should simply not read them. Let him not dissect them or try to understand them. But I would say to everyone to find out more about these stories, to read more. It is really not difficult today, if only one has the desire and the will to learn about something that at first sight is incomprehensible. Worse still, many people think that they do understand it. Yet I often find that there is far too much pre-judgement. These are fairy tales and the like I hear. Yet, with the right knowledge, they are not fairy tales. They are something completely different. They are something that I do not know today and the content is perhaps different from what I see. Knowledge always enriches a person, makes him active and makes him better. To be better tomorrow than oneself today. Another of the principles I want to put into practice every day.
Every story that is preserved for so many years has its own meaning. It has a content that is important to humanity. It has not been preserved because someone wanted it to be. But because of its message. Its content. Stories that tell us something. Stories that give people hope that they can be better. Hope is the first step, which must be followed by desire and real personal change. Some people think they will change overnight. They won’t. It is simply not possible. You didn’t even read the alphabet and know it the next day. One has to train, one has to think in order to learn and in order to mature. He has to put in the effort and work on himself. In everything that makes us who we are. I am. Each for himself. Yet we are beings who complement each other, who cooperate, who help each other … to achieve the best results. Of course, each individual is important, always has been and always will be. But nothing is more important than all of us together, as a community. In whatever form it takes. Local, business, social, friends… And it all starts with our core community. Family.
Let me come back to the introduction. One word, one action can change the course of events. A very small attention (a flower) can change someone close to you and, consequently, change you. Because love is something that cannot be described. Something that cannot be explained. What cannot be drawn, written or described. It is an infinite multitude of little things. They are little attentions, little actions. You will not believe what little things others remember about you. Amazing. So, observe and listen so that you can better say what is important. What really matters.
Primož
Next time, 10 July 2024, CLIENT (customer)