by Rosemary Redfern

Created on: December 07, 2008   Last Updated: July 13, 2010

Trying to get on with your own family or on a larger scale, internationally, always demands patience. It requires a level of self control to hold your tongue and wait when they do and say things you can’t understand. Most of us are in a hurry to say our piece and talk over the other. Interviewing reporters frequently ask questions of guests, then when the answer isn’t immediately what they want, fire more questions, drowning out the answers. It is extra ordinarily frustrating to listen to because it breaks up the flow of ideas. 

Add that we miss hear, misunderstand, think we know what the person is going to say, with our minds on other things we misinterpret what was said and sometimes are at a loss to follow the mindset of the other person, there is huge scope for disagreement. In English especially there are so many homonyms it is easy to select the wrong meaning, to add to the confusion.

Getting on requires a level of communication.  Communication means understanding what the other person means by the words they use.  Ensuring that we speak with the same meaning (not only in the same language) is the first step to good relationships. Individuals sometimes have a subtlety of meaning with words which are different from our own. For example conversations between men and women can be confusing because both genders express themselves differently. At the same time, some people think in absolute terms and in straight line thinking and others wander off the path and introduce side issues.  All these ways of communicating confuse the other type of thinker.

Often, not getting on with others is about not knowing where another’s ideas and expressions come from, nor what those words mean to them.  Even with the same language and within the same culture we can disagree violently with someone else’s point of view and wonder how they could come to the conclusions they have. 

One of the aids to getting on with others is having respect from them and giving respect in return. It is possible to dislike someone yet respect them. If we were all the same it would be boring and few new ideas would emerge.  We can never know the details of someone’s life which have given them the values and approach to life they have but we should be able to respect the fact that what they believe is their interpretation of their experiences.

To get on with others, we need to be respectful, patience, and listen. When we don’t understand, we should not be afraid to ask for explanations politely. Unfortunately, the pressure of time, general impatience and general lack of understanding mean that these qualities escape us. 

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