Misunderstanding

“I tried explaining everything all over again, but I felt defeated and lost all hope as I had exceeded the time limit, and the judges shook their heads disapprovingly and looked disappointed, alas, I couldn’t finish my speech and couldn’t put forth my point due to a few mispronounced words.”

I guess, everyone can agree that they have been misunderstood by others, and have misunderstood others’ statements as well at least once in their lives, but the important point here is that nobody is perfect. The schema that one creates after receiving a piece of information can change or cloud their perception of logic, which can be the consequence of various cognitive, perceptual, and motivational biases that systematically distort human judgment and inference which in turn creates misunderstandings, and can lead to intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts. Attention bias at the end of the receiver can influence the misunderstanding as people may end up interpretation of just part of what they heard, while the speaker delivered all the information that they had to convey. they may have been preoccupied with other matters, and just weren't mentally available. Nonetheless, you may need to take some responsibility, for it’s also possible that you started talking without making sure you’d secured their attention. Keep in mind that if the other individual is emotionally upset with you, whatever you say (or write) to them is likely to be taken unfavorably. So this is hardly the time to be making your most forceful arguments to convince them that your point of view is justified, or superior to theirs. Misunderstandings can lead to, exhaustion, unhappiness, anxiety, anger, etc. It doesn’t only affect a person psychologically, but biologically and evolutionarily. Your relationship may have deteriorated to the point that almost anything that comes out of your mouth will be received in a negative light, whatever you say is likely to be interpreted unfavorably. Your partner afflicted with a strong bias against you, is likely to perceive your explicit, or implied, meaning as something opposite to your benign or even reconciliatory intentions. What assumptions might you be making about the depth or breadth of another’s knowledge? Might your communication have included an allusion with which they were totally unfamiliar? a word like acquiescence, fulsome, or nonplussed — which you wrongfully estimated the individual would know the meaning of, but, frankly, many people do not. It's the same with jargon and acronyms — technical terms or verbal short-cuts you may be so familiar with that you assume everyone else knows. A rational and connotative meaning can be found if a person thinks with an open mind before replying, therefore it is important to think and communicate effectively.

Listen. While seemingly obvious, many people begin crafting their reply without really listening to the other person. Or they become so emotionally charged that they are hearing the person through filters from their past or from what they think the person is saying. In addition, listen to the entire content the person is conveying. Oftentimes, people hear the beginning sentences and jump on that conclusion without realizing the person was going to go in a different direction.

The only possible way to clear misunderstandings is by explaining, in better words, what we originally meant.