I had an unusual situation happen this week. I said something in a group of people and completely offended someone. Now, don't get me wrong. I have blatantly offended people before by expressing my beliefs or ideas on a topic. I've also put my foot in my mouth and experienced the lovely taste of leather many a time. This was different. I was speaking from my heart, and someone completely misinterpreted what I said. That is not a common experience for me.
I consider myself somewhat of a word expert (although since I've begun playing Words with Friends, I realize now that I am a neophyte). I am an English/Psychology major and daughter of an elementary school teacher. I have been in corporate communications for the last 20+ years. I am a published author. I consider myself a clear communicator--so you may not like what I say, but very rarely have I been misunderstood.
The person's reaction caught me completely off guard. When I discovered how the person felt about what I said, I was shocked and felt terrible. As a people-pleaser, the last thing I ever try to do is hurt someone's feelings. What I said had affected the person so much, he or she was contemplating not participating in the event about which we were meeting. That's a pretty big deal.
While I am going to let it go and not beat myself up about it, since it was not my intention to hurt anyone, it did make me think. As comfortable as I've become in communicating, words are an imprecise business. That's what I've loved about them. I hate math and am terrible at it. I've never like the right/wrong thing with solving math problems. Words are fluid, flexible, changing, and present you with a variety of options. The thing is, we hear and speak them through our own filters.
I'm thankful for this experience, jarring as it's been, because it's made me think about an aspect of communicating with which I haven't had much experience. What are words for? Hopefully they're for peace, for love, building people up and other positive things. Sometimes they're for fighting, when necessary. We must never forget, however, their power. In an age when we are surrounded by words--texting, tweeting, e-mailing--it would be imprudent to forget that.
