In this article I will tell you how you can get the most out of human communication. I will explain why do you need communication and what a great benefit this process contains if it is approached correctly.
We used to communicate with different people since childhood. Some of us communicate more, some less. Someone willingly goes on keeping in touch with people, someone on the contrary, avoids it. But many of us do not think about why they communicate and what they can get from it. For many people, communication is almost wasted, although they could get a lot more out of it.
The last few years of my life, I try to consciously make new acquaintances and rehabilitate old relationships with people whom I have not seen for a long time. I believe that there is a big sense in this. Further I will tell why.
Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said: "Hell is different." I would not use this aphorism as a philosophical manifesto that could reflect my worldview. The maxima of Aleister Crowley is more suited to me: “Every man and every woman is a star” or a statement by the hero of Jack Kérouk’s book “On the Road”: “Every person is a buzz, old man!”
I think that in any person you can find a lot of interesting things, we just, sometimes, do not notice this. Each person is a storehouse of valuable information that you just need to find and properly dispose of it.
Why is it so important to communicate with people?
So it turns out that the experience of each individual is very limited. It is limited by life expectancy and our capabilities. We can get only some insignificant part of information about the world, which the world contains in itself. Therefore, our judgments about nature, about life and about ourselves are imperfect, since they are based on incomplete information.
But our experience is limited not only by the time of our existence and the information we receive, but also by our abilities. It is impossible to be the best in everything. Having devoted time and energy to one, we miss something else. We are limited by our habits and character. Many of us are inundated with prejudice and false ideas. Despite the fact that all people have enormous potential for development, it will be very difficult for us without experience.
What can we get from those around us
Knowledge and experience
We can use the experience and knowledge of others. Despite the fact that the development of the Internet cultivates, encourages loneliness, it happens that information is difficult to find there. Remember how many useful things you learned from your social circle. How many useful features you have discovered. How many useful skills learned!
The exchange of knowledge between different people is an information space in which the experience of each individual person complements the experience of another person and is complemented by it.
By exchanging knowledge and experience, we penetrate deeper into the essence of things, become smarter and more conscious and develop our life in the best way.
Many new ideas and thoughts come during communications.
The point of view of another person can always complement our picture of the world, even if it does not correspond to our views. The opposite of our opinion can help us consider those accents of life that we did not notice because of our addiction and habits of thinking! Proper dialogue and productive discussion enrich us, and do not make us angry and confine ourselves to feeling our own unquestionable rightness, as happens in meaningless disputes in which each side strives to accuse the other and prove its truthfulness of its own opinion instead of listening and comprehending other people's experiences.
Look at things
We can learn from others not only knowledge, but also adopt their perception of reality, a look at things. Due to the limitations of our experience and because of the properties of our character, we can have a perception of reality that prevents us from living and limits our possibilities.
Communicating with optimists, with those who perceive life as a valuable gift, can teach us that life is not as bad as we think. And that the whole thing in our perception.
Conversation with successful young businessmen can overturn our view that work in the office and life from weekends to weekends is the only form of life.
And contact with those who have achieved success and happiness, despite the difficulties, will help you to understand that everything is possible and depends only on you.
Other people can infect you with their optimism and a positive outlook on things if they themselves are carriers of such qualities. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. You can adopt the despondency and pessimism of unhappy people. But I do not want to urge you to completely exclude communication with such people. This advice would be very selfish. The experience of communicating with them will help you understand what to avoid, so as not to be unhappy as they are.
An optimist can teach you what to do to also enjoy life and see good in it. Take responsibility for yourself, be active, develop, look positively at the future, set goals, achieve them and not succumb to failures.
A pessimist will show you what not to do! You shouldn’t complain about life, blame everything, be passive and lazy, capitulate to problems, avoid making decisions. Such a person can also learn something from you. Therefore, do not leave pessimists without the support they need.
Man is a life lesson embodied in reality. His happiness, success, relationships, view of things - are the measure of how true life path he chose. Everybody can learn something from everyone.
It is only necessary to be able to extract this lesson for yourself, and then other people will become an excellent school of life for us!
Advantages and disadvantages
We can learn from the strengths of people in the process of communicating with them. One should be able to notice it, to see what the other person is superior to us, and not to stubbornly believe that we are better than others in everything.
To become better, it is necessary to understand, thanks to which the people around us have their disadvantages and merits, and strive to avoid their mistakes or, conversely, to adopt their success.
For example, we can notice that someone is well versed in technology, because he tries not to resort to the help of specialists and always does everything himself. Another person is strong-willed and organized, because he is used to maintaining order everywhere. The third one is fluent in the language, as he has a habit of reading literature every day. The fourth person is always calm and joyful, as he practices yoga and meditates.
But the fifth is always tense and nervous, because he works 12 hours a day. The sixth is unrestrained and irritable, as he drinks a lot of alcohol. The seventh independent, because his parents did everything for him (and we will not make the mistake not for him, but for his parents in relation to their children).
Other people are a living rulebook about how we can become better or not worse. The strengths and weaknesses of people do not appear in them just like that, they are also not present in them from birth, as many used to think. Personality traits are the results of people's lives and information about how these qualities emerged is also contained in their lives.
Not always this information can be found. It can be difficult to determine why a person has become such and not others. But the virtues of others can be an excellent incentive to develop good qualities in ourselves when we notice these qualities in others.
Before writing this article, I accidentally stumbled upon Boris Pasternak's wonderful saying:
“All the people sent to us are our reflection. And they are sent so that we, looking at these people, correct our mistakes, and when we correct them, these people either change too or leave our lives. ”
This strikingly coincided with my thoughts, which prompted me to write this article. These thoughts helped me to cope with the insult and irritation that I sometimes experienced in disagreements with people.
I realized that I was offended by the manifestation of such qualities in people who actually exist in me: irritation, misunderstanding. I get angry at other people when they are unfair to me, although I myself am unfair. I worry about the fact that someone does not understand me, although I myself sometimes show a lack of understanding instead of putting myself in the place of another person.
And all people have these qualities, only they are represented in different degrees. Other people are a reflection of myself. They are not opposite creatures to me, they are just like me. By their actions they remind me of what is in me. When I look at other people, I look inside myself, and when I look inside myself, I look at other people.
Moreover, the very ability to hate is based on this fact. Most of all we hate what is in ourselves, what is most familiar to us. A strange, familiar feeling is exposed for us in full detail, each of which we can hate.
Information for self-knowledge
We have the opportunity to learn about a lot of new things not only from the observation of other people's shortcomings and merits. When we communicate, a whole series of mental reactions are launched that do not work when we are alone. With frank, informal communication, we feel a lot of new emotions, our fears and complexes are revealed, some hidden behaviors are revealed.
This is particularly pronounced when interacting with the same people in the same setting, for example, in a long hiking trip. Not to use the knowledge that we get about ourselves in the process of communication, it’s like buying a sports car and driving it at a speed of no more than 50 km / h! Thus, all the capabilities of the car and its functions, how the engine works at elevated speeds, how the brakes operate during heavy braking, we will not learn anything!
If a breakdown occurs in the car, then we may not know about it either, since this defect will not manifest at low speed. Maybe the engine actually does not have the required power, because you were deceived when buying. There is only one way to find out!
You need to communicate in order to engage in such psychological reactions that do not occur when you are alone. This is a great chance to learn a lot about yourself to work on yourself.
Help and support
People of the same circle are ready to help each other. That is why humanity unites into communities of interest or sympathy, or on a national basis. There is safety in numbers. By supporting others and accepting someone’s support, a person can achieve much more in this world than alone.
What prevents productive communications?
It would seem that communication brings us invaluable benefits. But for some reason, not everyone learns from others, takes on other people's strengths and comprehends themselves and improves. What exactly hinders such communication, in which each of its parties gains new experience and is enriched through communication?
Pride and fear
The conviction that we are always right in everything, that our point of view is the only correct one, prevents us from gaining the benefits of communication and enrichment with new experience. This belief is often unconscious. Many people consider themselves to be flexible, able to compromise and accept someone else's point of view if it turns out to be logical and reasonable. But it turns out that the opinion of another person never becomes neither logical nor reasonable, and the only bearers of truth for such people are themselves.
Their minds instinctively block themselves from everything alien to them, which tramples on their views and stifles their vanity. They diligently protect their point of view and are afraid that someone else’s opinion may damage this point of view and not supplement it.
They are closed on themselves, on their problems and their ideas. It seems to them that they know everything best.
In a dialogue with another person, they either defend their point of view or attack someone else, and do not listen, and do not comprehend. The argument is for them a battlefield, not a place where truth is born. Instead of listening to the interlocutor, they are waiting for their turn to speak.
They do not pay attention to the merits of others, because they consider themselves better than anyone else.
You must say that this is not about you. But there is pride and fear of being wrong in almost all of us. Simply, these qualities are present in varying degrees in different people. If you do not try to confront these shortcomings, they will only become stronger and control you even more.
Pride prevents you from opening up to new things, using someone else's experience and learning from the mistakes of others. It makes us dependent on ourselves, on our prejudices and conceit. We are becoming voluntary victims of the information blockade, because we don’t want to listen to anyone.
Because of this, we are missing a lot of life opportunities that we could get if we could give up our views and prejudices. But it is more important for us to defend our self-esteem than to recognize a truth that may prove beneficial, useful for us or complement our views on the world. It is more important for us to stay with us, than to understand another person, to realize what thoughts they are leading, why he thinks differently than we do. Perhaps we will see at least some logic and sense in his views, if we stop focusing on ourselves and are afraid that our usual attitudes will suffer ...
Pride is the main enemy of the exchange of views useful for both parties. It leads to spiritual impoverishment, anger, resentment, and irritation. Pride is not in vain as one of the deadly sins in the Christian tradition. It would be great if some Christians remembered about it, at the moments when they convincingly convince others of the correctness of their own views and positions, do not agree with anything that contradicts the conception of the world that he accepted on faith, accuse science of insulting their feelings and show disrespect towards people of other beliefs or beliefs.
Complexes and prejudices
Low self-esteem, shyness, lack of self-confidence, social fears - all this blocks people from fruitful interaction with other people.
But the presence of these qualities is not a reason to not communicate. On the contrary, if you are unsure of yourself, then you need to communicate in order to overcome these fears. This is the only way you can handle them.
I think that facing face to face with your fears and problems is the most effective means of getting rid of them. If you are afraid to fly, then you need to get on a plane and work with your fear, instead of capitulation to it and using the trains. And if you experience problems in communication, you should communicate in order to overcome these problems!
This is a complex, but it is the most effective method of working on yourself; I was convinced of this from personal experience. Do what you are afraid to do more often. And this advice applies not only to the issue of communication with people.
Final tips and comments
Not every kind of communication is fruitful. The benefits of communication can be obtained only when each side is open towards each other, rather than hiding behind the wall of formal rules that protect the intimate space of the individual. When each person involved in the process of communication, carefully listens and watches, and not just waiting for their turn to speak. When each opinion complements the other, and not opposed to it.
Communicate! Do not be communications. They will enrich your personality and make your position in this world more stable and stable thanks to someone else’s support and attention. Meet new people. Be open, liberated and frank! Do not be afraid of people.
Revive old connections. Learn from those around them with knowledge and experience. Take over their strengths and avoid the mistakes of others. Be open to new opinions. Try to understand the other person. Ask yourself: “Why does he think so? Why does he act? ”Put yourself in the shoes of other people.
Avoid hate, envy, gloating. Remember, all people are your reflection. And that, for which you can hate someone, is (or was) also yourself. Sincerely admire others and praise them. Notice the good in them, and do not dwell only on the bad.
Stop tagging people around you. Change the dislike for interest and curiosity. Get ready to help. Be condescending and tolerant. Remember, the world does not revolve around you alone, you lose a lot if you neglect other people's experiences and the lessons you can learn from real, open communication!
Each person is a unique experience, generated by completely unique conditions, unique abilities and unique personality development! Take this experience and use it!
