In conversations, you talk back and forth with friends and say what comes to mind. Do you say what you are thinking or think what you are saying? What enters your mind is not always filtered through the paradigm of another person’s life.
OK, so what exactly is a paradigm? According to The Free Dictionary, it is; a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.
Oh WOW! That is a mouth full. About what I am writing, it means, How
do you or another person see a situation based on what we have been through in our lives. If you have had wonderful parents and thoughtful siblings, then you may see everyone as good people. But on the other side of this is the bad, mean, abusive parents and spiteful siblings. This type of childhood will cause you to look at everyone else with distrust.
Have you been admired at school or have you been bullied? Situations like these may affect how you hear what another person is saying to you.
My husband and I along with a friend went to dinner last night. My friend has tattoo sleeves on both arms. The guy next to us wanted to know all about the tattoos. His only problem was he never once look at her face. He was busy looking at her chest. They talked for a bit, and he looked at me and said, MOM? I was very offended. Most ladies would be offended? I told him, “Yes I am a mom but not her mom.” He spent the next ten minutes trying to take back what he had said.
He said the words without thinking before he spoke, then he tried to fix it. This morning I woke up knowing it was an honest mistake if he had been looking at her face, but I still remembered the words.
If he had thought those words but never spoke them, I would have never known. But if he had said kind words I would have remembered those words this morning also.
When you are with friends, please think about the words you speak. Kind words can lift the spirits of a hurting person. Compassionate words that are said can brighten the day of a tormented person.
You never know what another person is going through or what they have been through in their life. You may never know what paradigm their thoughts run through. But you can control your spoken words and brighten the life of another person.