Communicating: a Lost Art

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've made a post here. Life has been getting the better of me lately, and unfortunately my consistency with this blog and some of my schoolwork have fallen as a result. Now I'm back and I've recommitted to do these consistently through to the end of the semester. 

This last week we focused heavily on communication. More particularly, on the problems of communication. While I was sitting in class, I felt myself being drawn into the discussion. I could tell others were as well, and if any of them were like me, it was because communication is something we all struggle with and want to be better at. I find this interesting, since most of us have been communicating in some way or another since we were born, most of which has likely been actual verbal communication. Why then is it the case where we feel like we have such a need to be better communicators?

I know that, like me, many people in today's world grew up with the resources to communicate instantly over a screen. Among the different types of communication available, face-to-face communication is typically our last option. It's become so easy to communicate that we have put less effort into the important art of communication. 

Most of us don't even notice until we need to communicate effectively with someone face-to-face. I know that in my case, I didn't realize I had trouble communicating until I served a mission for my church. As a missionary, I served with many different people, and my communications with them were almost all face-to-face all day. I had many different companions who I literally had to spend almost every minute of every day with. Face to face communication was the only option with them. I have lots of experiences where I had to learn how to communicate better with them to keep things peaceful.

I think of one particular instance that was somewhat comical in hindsight. Growing up, I would use the words "sure" and/or "that's fine" to mean something in the affirmative and nothing more. I had a companion who later told me that, before he really knew me, thought that I hated him or something because I would say those words or phrases whenever he asked if something was ok. I guess to him, those had some sort of negative connotation which was something I had never considered.

In any communication, the one sending the message needs to "encode" their message in such a way that can be understood by the receiving person who must be able to "decode" that message through some medium, like speech, body language, text, etc. In the example above, I meant to tell my companion that it was ok to do what he was suggesting, which I did through speech using specific words as well as my body language, which my companion then interpreted as something else entirely. This was partly due to the fact that he did not know me that well at that time, and his culture and beliefs about what I had said. 

Had we not communicated that I was being misunderstood, I would have had no idea. It's difficult to know these things unless we get out of our shells and try to communicate better. It takes intentional practice, but I think it's something we should pick back up again and try to understand others and be as clear as we can with what we mean. This is just a small part of the problem we face with communication, but hopefully it gave you a small idea of why communication is so hard today. I could honestly go on about some of the strategies we learned to help with communication, but I don't have the time unfortunately. I would be doing you a huge disfavor though if I didn't at least turn you to resources so that you could learn for yourself if you wanted to. If you're interested, look here to learn the 5 Secrets to Effective Communication.