The ability to understand people isn’t something we’re born with. While some are more apt to learning than others, the knowledge must still be gained through hard work. Unlike every child’s attempt to dig to China, the work done here is well worth it.
Through studying people and research, the ability to understand people becomes clearer, dragging its benefits along behind it. Some of the decisions that are sometimes needed are required after a short period of time. This type of understanding is usually a generalized one. Oddly enough, the use of generalizing requires much more practice because it takes time to define the generalizations and to realize when to use each. It helps in various occasions that have a short amount of time. A specific example would be deciding whether or not a person you just met, who had offered to give you a nickname, would give you reasonable nickname. Understanding people could be the difference between The King and Bathroom Boy.
Opposing the quick decisions stands the long, drawn-out decisions. The ones that make you spend hours upon hours, days upon days, just thinking about the possible choices. Then there’s the time on top of that, spent construing every possible outcome for each choice. Nobody enjoys this month long process, but luckily, understanding people can make this easier too. It’s easier than making three payments of nineteen ninety-nine; it’s even easier than listening to the voice that has to say that ten million times. This is because understanding people can help if there are other people involved. Obviously this complicates things, for you need to know each person on a more in-depth level. Once they’re known, you can predict how they’ll react to each option that you have. This can be the difference between casting a smile on your face and casting your arm in plastic.
The last general benefit of understanding a person comes when you’re trying to help somebody else. Understanding can help people infinitely in this case, because the information isn’t always served up on a plate like a toaster strudel straight out of the microwave. The less information you’re given, the more you have to work to understand. In order to give good advice you always want to understand all sides of the problem. This can mean talking to a person and reading his body language, or it can mean watching how he interacts with other people in and out of the situation. It’s no question that your understanding of each side effects the advice you give. Your advice and therefore your understanding could be the difference between landing with the leaves as they settle down and kicking up a storm.
Understanding can help you help yourself as well as others. That is more rewarding than getting to China, shutting off stupid advertisements, and receiving a mouth-watering toaster strudel combined. Understanding aids in so many cases like this, yet people still don’t bother to make any attempt to understand one another. Don’t be one of those provincial fools.
word count: 504
Sunday, February 22, 2009
A Decision’s Decadence
Posted by m.vincent at 6:47 PM
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1 comments:
You are a unique problem for a writing teacher. You have so much potential, but you're trying too hard. Go through each sentence here and say to yourself: "Is every word here contributing to expressing my ideas?" Example: Through studying people and research, the ability to understand people becomes clearer, dragging its benefits along behind it.
Your second paragraph is a nightmare. I have no concept of what you are trying to express. Actually, I have a vague idea because your wording early in the paragraph is vague, too. The best part is the bathroom Boy v. King example.
The root problem here is that you aren't exactly stating what you mean by understanding people. You mean reading people and predicting outcomes based on stimuli. For instance, you can understand your teachers, read their "tells" and predict how they will respond to certain situations. By getting to know me, you know that if you show up thirty seconds late for my class, I'll likely accept some hustle shown or a sincere apology. Other teachers might have reported you to the FBI as a missing person. You've picked up on subtle and not-so-subtle clues that allow you to predict behavior.
Why can't you ground yourself a bit in your writing? If I asked the rest of the class if they TRULY understood some of the (high-end) concepts of your blog, they might say "yes" just to cover for you. However, I'd wager they'd feel that you are not communicating as effectively as you can.
You've proven to me that you are bright, ambitious, sensitive, clever, insightful, and multifaceted. Now prove to me that you can communicate effectively!
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