Speak the truth always
Speak the truth even if it hurts
The fourth chapter from my Development Management journal
When I get to a new environment, be it a school, an office, a church wherever it could be I am often quite and I observe, but as time passes I see myself being able to talk well and easily with the people around, I interact well with class-mates, colleagues, church members, housemates and people generally. It often doesn't last though, there would be a issue of me not trusting them, because I open up easily and too fast. I didn't have a barricade for my communication I would just say it as I feel and not care who it hurt or what it affected so long am saying my mind. And its funny how I would not tell them these things in person I would always communicate over text messages most times. I would spill fire in my text. I was concerned about making friends so soon but not concerned about keeping them, if I felt offended my someone they stop being my friends I won’t talk to them, call, text them and even if I do it would be to cause more harm, by identifying the problem the way I see it fit, their opinions didn't matter, I would take the whole air tie and talk and talk until my words get to make no sense and I am stuttering or blabbing.
I didn't know what supportive communication was so I didn't make use of it, I was just an ineffective communicator, my friends thought I was selfish and just thought of myself as being perfect and they would not understand what I was saying at all, we would get misunderstandings and every time we would go home angry and sad. I always thought it was their fault they didn't understand my method of communication.
If I want to correct someone’s wrong behavior I mostly did it in public and it just would not add up, they thought I was mocking them and trying to make fun of them, it was just wrong and sad I failed at delivering the message and they equally failed at understanding it.
I focused on honest answers to questions, but they were really blunt so invariably I think that upset people because they want to hear the truth but of course sugar-coated with lies and I don’t know how to play well in that game my answers, responses were very congruent
I am not going to state that I focus on the person or am problem-oriented I swerve between this two depending on the issue and time for instance if someone is trying to understand a difficult course lets say Electrolyte compounds in physics, and I give you two-third of my day and you don’t do well in the exam though the course is difficult I would suggest the person has difficulty too understanding fast, maybe the person is a slow learner, hearing the fact I thought him a day to the test. It is both ways in this situation.
I own my statement and my talk, and I use specific sentences when addressing a very important issue, I seldom maybe almost never use global and disowned form of statements to address an issue.
Though I am not a validating communicator I am not an invalidating one either, I think I am on the thin line that differentiates one from the other. I am a conjunctive listener because I try to relate my next statement to the previous one the other party said based on the issue on ground I try to make sure my gist and talk are interrelated to that of the person or people am communicating with. I never get to talk of irrelevant, senseless talk that are not related whatsoever. I used to though, but these days am getting a hold of myself to think twice before I say anything so as not to be irrelevant to be my listener.
I use genuine statements these days I won’t sugar coat you if I feel what you are doing is wrong, I don’t care what you think of me, some say am heartless especially the male friends I have, because I just refract totally when I see our friendship wants to go elsewhere maybe into a relationship I would just bluntly refract and say No, i would tell them whole hog am not caught for this type of game and it doesn't interest me and how it is not healthy for students to start dating, when they have not had a grasp on other areas of their life and this gets them upset, because they think by buying gifts of clothes, shoes, chocolates they can woe you, they don’t know with time comes responsibilities and right now the time is for serious academic work, no joking, no faulting, no failing all I want to do now is win, win and win again. I would not just wake up one morning and say I want to date a guy, not like he has anything to offer, just wants to tickle my fancy, gets what he wants to get and move on. I am just amazed and I laugh at myself because I once thought I was in love but really it was pure infatuation and nothing more, it was healthy for me or for the guy in question and I told him how what we’re doing was not healthy for us and our academics and he flared up saying he knew it, I told someone else about us and he just muttered and blabbed like a child I was totally pissed he said lot of bullshit and I just worked out. Its crazy how someone says they love you and they just do total bullshit. It just doesn't fit the jig-saw, and I would tell you completely how bad it has been I would remember every detail and just spit it like wild fire, sometimes over the phone but most times over texts. I did that a lot.
If I have few friends today its because I cut most of them out through the nasty, annoying text messages I would send. Things I would not be able to man up to tell them in person I would over texts. It just robbed in so deep and so hurtful. To me texts are modern day letters. It worked in the centuries past. You send letters to communicate things and now I would use the text instead but I realized it is not so good an approach as I should be able to communicate on a face-to-face channel without fears of any kind.