People say, “You dress funny.”
People say, “You should spend more time with people.”
People say, “You should wear a suit when you teach.”
Yesterday, I talked about how we often don’t ask the right questions. And here we have perfect examples.
The problem with “People say…” is that it removes ownership of the issue from the person giving the message.
When I say, “People say…” am I saying, “Other people think this, but I would certainly never say this.”?
That makes no sense, right? I mean, if it isn’t something you believe to be a problem, why are you even telling me?
Maybe what “People say…” really means is, “I think this, but I’m too afraid to come right out and say it because then we’d have to deal with the conflict that would produce.”
It’s a way of telling you what I really think without having to deal with the conflict.
People say you should bring the truth out of the shadows. When people say, “People say…” people say, you should ask them if that’s what they think too. If they don’t, then people say you should ask them why they are telling you since it obviously isn’t a concern of theirs. If they admit that it is a problem of theirs, people say you should then ask them what THEY think the real problem is.
People say, “you’ll be surprised.”
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Tagged with: thinking