The Meaning of Words - Part 2

This is a follow-up to last week’s article on how to interpret what someone is actually communicating. Today I want to address one of the major misconceptions we (the listener) have as to why it's difficult to sort out the message someone is communicating.

A year or so ago, my son who is attending college was telling me about one of his classmates that he really liked. He said that the guy has everything. He is good-looking, charming, confident, intelligent, very social, ambitious, hardworking, and, more than anything else, he is nice. My son then said the words that describe the sentiment that most of us seem to share. “With all these things going for him, you would think he would be a real jerk, but he’s not, Dad. He is a really nice guy.”

It was at this point I looked my son in the eyes and said, “If this young man had all of those things going for him as you have said, then why would he need or want to be a jerk?”  It took a long time for my son to respond. As I looked at him, I could see the cogs in his brain turning. After a while, he asked me to repeat my statement. At this point I repeated it and, after another pause, he said something to the effect that he understood some of my message but that it was still unclear.

I then explained to him that if someone is confident in who they are, then it’s not necessary for them to be a jerk because they don’t need to bring someone else down to bring themselves up. It’s important to understand that someone is only a jerk so that they can shift the power balance and become higher in the pecking order.

I then explained that somehow man has misled themselves into believing that someone with good qualities is expected to be a jerk, or at least that it is seemingly acceptable. In fact, when you watch TV or other media, the more of a jerk someone is portrayed to be, the more power their character seems to have. Of course, when you step back and look at it, just the opposite is rational and true in reality.

So, if you can retrain yourself and your beliefs and just recognize the logic and rationale of today’s message, then you will find it is much easier to look at last week's example, which is about how bragging reveals a much different message than what the braggart’s actual words convey. Once you make this mental shift, it is amazing what a different perspective you have on the world around you.