Skip to main content

Talking Trumps Thinking


.Trump - get the better of; "the goal was to best the competition"
best, outdo, outflank, scoop
beat, beat out, vanquish, trounce, crush, shell - come out better in a competition, race, or conflict; "Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship"; "We beat the competition"; "Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game"
outmaneuver, outmanoeuvre, outsmart - defeat by more skillful maneuvering; "The English troops outmaneuvered the Germans"; "My new supervisor knows how to outmaneuver the boss in most situations"


Growing up, my mother seemed to oft get into fights with nannies and house helps who when they were reprimanded for doing something wrong would quickly defend themselves by saying, 'mbadde ndowoza...' (I thought...).
 'I thought you had noticed we had ran out of salt', 'I thought you had seen the electricity bill'...'I thought', 'I thought', 'I thought'!!!...My mother's consistent comeback was always, 'Why don't you stop thinking and start talking?!!'...
I take issue with people who would rather think than talk.
'I thought you preferred x, y or z'...'I thought it was okay'...'I thought girls like such things'...'I thought it didn't matter'...

How about you ask me? How about you lay what you are thinking on the table and we, together, decide if we are on the same page?!...How about you talk?!
I am aware of  the 'speech is silver, silence is golden' adage; but, I am pretty sure the originator did not intend to encourage communication deficit in human relations. Making assumptions has often been the root cause of conflict, of misunderstanding, of disappointment. Shakespearean tragedies constantly had me thinking; 'kale why didn't Othello talk to Desdemona about the stuff Iago was claiming instead of acting on rumours or what he thought was happening?!...should Hamlet have carried out revenge based on the declarations of a ghost?!...

I also acknowledge that confrontation is no piece of cake for many people yet, wouldn't one rather endure the 'discomfort' of confronting another to confirm whether what one thinks is the truth or not than take a decisive step that turns out to bring unhappiness all around?

I haven't always been willing to confront situations or people; preferring to act on my assumptions or conclusions on a matter. This way of doing things has not 'worked' very well. So, I am training myself daily to as much as possible try to get to know the whole truth, the full story before I act. The good health and growth of any relationship depends principally on effective communication (a good part of which is talking). As far as I am concerned, talking trumps thinking.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mother to Son...beautiful piece

A LETTER TO MY TWO YEAR OLD September 2, 2011 at 9:12 am by Pumla Nabachwa Every year, during the week of my children’s birthdays, i shall write them a letter and keep them in separate boxes and present them with these boxes the day they graduate. (& graduate they will) Today, I write a 2nd letter to my first born son…..now Trey Gateja……My pride…….My joy! My sunshine, It’s been 730 days & we’re both still alive………let alone sane. I’m not sure how I haven’t strangled you to death yet or left you out at night hoping that a hawk will grab you & take you far away from me. I’m quite perplexed that am not in a mental hospital, let alone 6 feet under. The doctors promised me that the pain stops immediately after the baby is delivered but nooooooooo…….we’re here today & I’m still pulling my hair out. Somebody once said; “it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you’ve had a baby”…… that somebody doesn’t know that once you’re a mother, ‘normal’ is his...
4 comments
Read more

Great Expectations...

I refer, not to the well-loved Charles Dickens book but to the prospects, the eager anticipation that comes with committing to a person in a romantic relationship. I remember how incensing it was whenever  John Doe told me he had no expectations of me and I, therefore, should not have any of him. 'Why can't you just go with the flow, Lynn!' he would cry. 'Why must you complicate things?!'...and consequently, I would walk away from such conversations feeling like the wicked witch of the west- the one who always screws things up. Contractual terms can be considered expectations, right? Par example; I hand over x million shillings, you hand over your car's keys... You pay y amount of shillings as rent, I let you live in my house, You pay me US $ z , I write a proposal for your organization...et cetera, et cetera... So, how, then, is it that when it comes to romantic relationships, people want to avoid the conversation about expectations like the pla...
6 comments
Read more

My Sister: Liza

Let me tell you about my '20-something going on 40' year old sister. She is 5"5. She is a yellow banana :-). She wears spectacles. She loves to wear (and consequently to buy [ very often ])high heels. She sounds like a man in the morning, deep throated voice and laughter. She loves music, can sing along to most of the popular R n B 'buyimba'. She can do some pretty fascinating make-up on any face, real artistry. She is a Queen and must be treated as such (Paul is the only man who has understood this better than anyone). The hair that grows from the roots of her scalp has been the igniter of envy from femalefolk in her life since forever :-). She loves colour, do not give her greys and blacks. She can cook up a storm, give her any recipe and she will bring it to life. She drives a hard bargain, for all her lack of fluency in vernacular, she never fails to get the best deal on clothes, shoes, bags, whatever. She, unlike me, does not easily get up to ...
5 comments
Read more