In the last week, I received a couple of emails that annoyed me. As with these things, the reaction was mostly visceral/emotional and in general, devoid of too much logic. Of course, as we know very well, when our elephant does have a strong emotional reaction, our rider readjusts the logic to suit the emotion.
I tried analyzing what caused such a reaction and soon found the reasons. And then, I did the first sensible thing – I waited a couple of days before replying. I am very glad I did that. It’s taken me about 3 years to be able to develop this part of the self control muscle and not react on impulse. Anyway, I figured out that one email hit an insecurity and the other felt unexpected. Fair enough.
It still didn’t solve the annoyance problem, of course.
That’s about when a big learning about written communication came to mind. The big trouble with written communication is that anything that can be misconstrued will generally be misconstrued. And I’ve had my own emails, posts misunderstood more than a couple of times.
For that one moment, I put myself in the shoes of the email writer. And I realized what I would have liked most was to have been given the benefit of the doubt.
But, here I was – on the other side now and at the brink of reacting in a way I would have deemed unfair myself.
Big moment.
I decided to let the emails pass and give the senders the benefit of the doubt. And I’m glad I did. I’m better for it. And, needless to say, happier and able to focus on things that matter.
We often think of saying ‘No’ and focus as the ability to say no to external projects and commitments.
Perhaps the biggest recipient of ‘No’ should be our own mind so we stop treating molehills like mountains and really focus on doing work that matters.
A Learning a Day 