Should you always believe what people say?
The art of reading people is the art we ought to develop. And nurture.
Raw and Real Conversation
One of the (false) beliefs I have had for a long time is people mean what they say. Especially when they say it in anger.
I used to believe that “in anger you are not thinking and filtering, so what comes out of your mouth is pure truth.”
I think a lot of us have considered this to be true at some point in our lives.
Now that I know better, I guess I was wrong.
I think when people are under the influence of anger, they simply lash out an incongruent, untrue, incoherent blabber that they themselves don’t think about, let alone believe it.
As a matter of fact, this is the reason why learning how to communicate is so important. Because you can not and should not say everything that is on your mind. Especially for relationships you care for.
This is something I have learnt from Christopher Voss:
“Communication is a form of respect. If you respect someone, you will work on the way you communicate with them. If you don’t, you will be careless. If you want to know if you respect someone, just look at the way you communicate with them.”
So at work when someone wants you to get into a quick meeting, instead of telling them “go to he**, I am not going to get into an hour long mental torture with you for a useless thing” which you want do to say (I get it), you would say “could you send me an email on this? By EOD please. Thank you.”
That brings me to the point when people just blurt out.
They do respect you, they care for you, they will fight the world for you, but right now…right now they are under the influence of their emotions. They don’t know how to stop themselves. And if they cannot control themselves in the moment, how will they care for you in the same moment?
So my friend, when someone you care for has said something you did not expect, take it easy.
Do not make it a gospel to live with for the rest of your life. You do not want to be at the end of 2026 thinking “I will never forget what he said to me on one grimy winter afternoon of 2022.”
You deserve better.
That said…
When do people really mean what they say?
I think when people are consistenly showing you through their actions, words or conduct that you mean far lesser to them.
The first instance above was giving people around you the benefit of doubt because they are consistently a good human being who care for you.
However, if something in someone is a pattern of demeanor and not a point of delusion, you now have to make a decision of either calling it out or changing what you bring to the table.
I remember I used to be this person who would give people in this second category (consistently I-don’t-care-kinda’s) incessant benefit of doubt. “He didn’t mean it.” “He must be busy, that’s why he was rude.” “He does something different that is why I do not understand what I go through” and so on. I shut down my power to judge because I was constantly fighting the case for them.
Don’t be like me. Have the wisdom to see people for who they are, and then see if you want to hang around with who they are.
The bottomline is two-fold:
Do not get married to one-time acts of people acting out or living out of character. We all deserve forgiveness we don’t have the fortitude to ask for.
Do not blindfold when one-time acts of people are all-time attitudes. See people for the best they could be, yet protect yourself from the worst they are right now consistently.
2 Raw One-Liners:
If you continue lying to yourself, eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.
The joy of being at home and reading instead of going to a movie theatre is the richness we don’t speak about anymore.
3 (for) Real quick blogs that you might like (instead of doomscrolling) :)
Please tap the titles and you’ll be taken to the short blog. Direct read, no subsription needed.
Alright my friend, this is it for this week.
Next week I will come with a quick thing you must do before 2026 begins (something that will stay with you all your life, as it has with me).
See you then.
Till then, keep reading, keep rocking :)
Nishtha Gehija
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