Remain Teachable

 

Here’s my third Letter to the Editor. It was published in my local news paper, the ‘Maryland Independent’. So far I’ve had three out of four submissions published. Not bad for a beginner I guess.

 

Communication is a big deal to me and probably to most of us. A couple of weeks ago, two different people on two different occasions irritated me, because of their inability to know how to communicate.

 

I told an acquaintance of mine, about a dreadful situation I was involved in. When I told her what I was going through, she took the opportunity to force her unsolicited advice on me. She actually told me, “Shut up and listen.” Her advice had nothing at all to do with my situation and if she would have listened to me, she would have realized that.

 

During this one sided onslaught, I looked at my friend Matt and he shook his head. We grabbed our belongings and left, while she was talking. She was still talking while we were walking out of the door.

 

We actually had another engagement and while we were driving there, I asked Matt, “Was that my fault?”

 

He said, “No!” He then asked, “Why didn’t you tell her, to shut up?”

 

I told him, “She probably wouldn’t have heard that either.”

 

Less than an hour later, a guy at our next stop, totally ignored my question and told me, if I didn’t do it his way, I would fail. I must have asked him the same question three or four more times, but changing the wording a little in case he didn’t understand it. He stuck to his guns, while talking about something that had nothing to do with my question. At one time he even told me, “You look like you can miss a few meals, if you can’t afford it.” What he was talking about, was so far from the question I asked, that it baffle me.

 

I looked at Matt and asked, “What going on? Is it me?”

 

He laughed and said, “No. It’s their problem, not yours.”

 

Later that day I wrote, ‘Communication Matters’ and posted it on my website. Several days later I changed it a little and sent it to the paper. Here it is.