Why We Don’t Understand Each Other…

Consider these vignettes:

A woman is riding the subway home… At the next stop, a family of rambunctious kids piles in, while the father sits quietly. As the subway heads toward its next stop, the children are running around like banshees. The woman asks the husband if he can do anything about his kids. The man responds that they just came from the hospital. His wife and the mother of these beautiful kids just died after a long illness.

A man waits for the waiter to bring the check… He and his party just enjoyed a wonderful meal at a great restaurant with great service. The waiter is very busy taking care of the other parties in his station. The waiter finally leaves their check. When the party finally leaves, the waiter who receives 90% of his income from tips, finds after everything he did to provide excellent personal service, the party left him no tip.

A friend said… They didn’t hire me so you won’t be hired either… My friend Jason and I heard about a great employer. He managed to submit his application before me. He finally interviewed and within a week received a rejection letter. I submitted my application and my interview is scheduled for next week.

What went wrong???

Each of these people expected the other person to be just like them.

• The woman in the subway felt she was conducting herself in a civilized and polite manner and could not understand why the father and his family would act the same way.
• The man in the restaurant did not consider that the waiter had other parties that he had to wait on, in addition to his own. As a result, he could not understand why he’d have to wait for the server to provide the check.
• My friend Jason thought I was just like him. Therefore, he thought since he wasn’t hired, I wouldn’t be hired either. What Jason did not realize is everybody is different.

It all comes down to this…

Each of us draws conclusions based on our limited knowledge. We know next to nothing about the lives of others. We know significantly more about our lives. As a result, we assume everyone is exactly like us.

You do it. I do it. We all do it. That is why we do not understand others. That’s why we have misunderstandings.

Shankar Vedantam, the host of NPR’s Hidden Brain, said it best:

Empathy, at a deep level, is understanding that someone else’s world is just as real as yours.

John Steinbeck said:

Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.

I hope you found this article helpful…