Friday, August 20, 2010

Personal Experience

I am cross posting this from our ministry wiki, if you haven't checked it out yet take a look and join in the conversation and blogging whatever it is that you believe, it'll make things interesting. 

Frustration. What a common occurance in my life. I find that a lot of my frustration is caused by myself, why? Because I expect things out of myself and people that I or others don't live up to and I am left disappointed which for me leads directly to frustration.
Hands down one of the most frustrating experiences in my life is when I am talking to someone or someones and I am asked for my opinion, now those who know me know that I have plenty of opinions, it's no secret, occasionally I am ashamed of it but for the most part I try and embrace that part of myself while still reminding myself that other people's opinions are just as valuable as mine and if I take the time to listen them I will probably gleen something worthwhile, believe it or not you can gleen something from every conversation, either something that you would like to be like or do or something you definetly want to avoid becoming or do not want to do. OK, rabbit trail. Frustration, opinions, I'm back. I was recently in a conversation where my opinion on a certain item was asked. After I gave my opinion (just to be clear the opinion I gave was based on personal experience as well as some science and professional backing) the reply from the other person started with "actually", uh oh, at that point the frustration starts to rise from my chest and quickly make it's way towards my throat where it will slowly start choking my over the next few hours, days, weeks... "actually" is one of the most negatory words out there, when the word "actually" is used after someone has said something and before someone's opinion on the matter it completely negates what was said before it. "Actually", the word came flying out right before an entire explanation on why what I said probably wasn't true and had to do something with something else this person had read or researched. I then preceded to ask where the personal experience came from and was informed that the person I was talking to no longer did what we were discussing! Why? And get this, for the reason that I stated the product my opinion was asked on was used for! 

Now this is not a one time thing. It happens all of the time. I don't know if people aren't listening or if everyone really thinks they are so dang intelligent, maybe the internet is partly to fault because there is so much information floating out there ready for anyone to pick up on and read but there is one thing that makes all the difference, personal experience. Now I do think that there are some other ways to learn things as well, like learning from someone who has had the personal experience that is called trust, my listening, absorbing and then putting someone else's personal experience in to action you have gained wisdom.

Of course that is just my opinion.

1 comment:

  1. I can relate to your frustration and as with you it's my expectations that cloud the issue.

    ReplyDelete