
Michael used to tell a story…
One day he got home tired, really tired after a long day at work. He opened the door, kissed me and sit on his favorite sofa.
And I, who was a very loving wife — or so he said laughing and winking an eye — decided to spoil him and prepare him a delicious cup of coffee.
After a while the house was full of the wonderful smell of coffee, I came close to him and offered the smoking cup of the beverage.
He took the cup, smelled the coffee and took a sip. Next thing that happened he looked at me, directly to my eyes and said: “Sweetie, the coffee is cold”.
Up to this point of the story, there were already some laughs, “Uuuuuhh” sounds and other reactions from the group. With those expressions, he asked: “What’s the fact of the story?”.
After five years of listening to this story, in different groups, the responses were really similar. The people always said things like:
The fact is you have a super wife!
The fact is she is very sloppy, how did she serve you cold coffee?
The fact is you are disgraceful!
The fact is she doesn’t care about you!
The fact is you’re getting divorced!
The fact is you should leave her!
The fact is you are a “macho”!
The fact is she isn’t a good wife!
The fact is you got home tired!
The fact is she cares for you!
The fact is she doesn’t love otherwise she’d know how you like coffee!
The fact is you like boiling coffee!
For me, it was astonishing how many answers would come up from just a simple story.
And, suddenly, someone would say: “the fact is the coffee is cold!”. After this, it was common to see everyone stare at each other and came to a single answer: “the fact is the coffee is cold!”
And Michael would say “No, that’s not the fact”. So the storm of ideas would continue, theories, conspiracies, all sort of things about our relationship, who I was as a wife, who my husband was, the situation… Until someone would say “The fact is the coffee was cold for you!”
Then, Michael would smile and say “Almost, the fact was that, for me, that afternoon at the moment, the coffee seemed cold”.
And that would lead to another discussion; to see if “facts were facts”.
We have a lot of thinking mechanisms that are useful to simplify the complexity of the world that we live in and which become less useful in social construction.
We see someone who doesn’t says “thank you” when receiving a gift so we assume he/she didn’t like the present, that he/she is “disgraceful” or even both. Or we see someone yells in the middle of the street and we assume that he/she is neurotic. Or we see a girl dancing with another man on her wedding day and that means she’s a “slut”.
This might seem “funny” in the context of normal situations, but it isn’t as funny when it comes to building.
So, we share with you three ideas if what you are willing to build:
1. Confusing behavior with manners doesn’t lead to any good. If a person has recurrent behavior, we tend to catalog it based on this behavior “you’re irresponsible!”.
And we really don’t know if the person “is” irresponsible. We don’t have any idea about the reasons of this behavior, maybe he/she thinks is the right thing to do, or doesn’t know that it must be different, or he isn’t capable of doing something different — even if he/she wants to — or he/she doesn’t want it or doesn’t care.
We turn facts (situations that actually have value to us, as we focus on them) into judgments and labels.
So, next time, instead of labeling let’s investigate; Why does this person behave like that? How it affects others? The answers may surprise you!
2. People that think different from you aren’t stupid, they just think different. Usually, we evaluate behaviors and contributions from our perspective. Different isn’t silly, silly is a judgment about different, it says more about who says it than about what he/she is saying.
So, next time someone says something silly, why don’t you explore his/her logic before establishing that what he/she is saying is a fact? What made you think that’s the best option? Maybe you’ll discover that a perspective different from yours isn’t silly.
3. Finally, facts are facts for the one who is saying the fact. I mean, believing that a fact is a fact for everyone, it’s an invitation to chaos in social construction.
What could be useful? Instead of thinking about facts, think about results, benefits, and future construction.
Instead of wasting our energy on analyzing what happened, let’s focus on what we want to be different if it can be changed.
Let’s remember that a “fact” is in the past and the possibility of change is in the future, in what hasn’t been done yet, and hasn’t become a fact yet.
No comment yet, add your voice below!