This bit here — “We fear saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing. We wait for perfect words to show up and end up offering no words at all.” — is exactly what came up on my end during a mentoring session I was leading yesterday.
I was modeling how to use journaling to identify roadblocks to accomplishing our goals. This exact issue came up as one of my roadblocks to reaching out to my US senators (one of my current goals).
As someone who knows the amazing power of “a word fitly spoken,” I yearn for those kinds of words in my own writing/communication. I also have enough experience as a teacher/communicator to know that sometimes we have to go ahead with the messier communication in order to work our way to understanding. But with someone who’s looking for the sound bite, the one-page of talking points, the hot take, someone who doesn’t have time for the messy bits first, I get stuck. Frozen here as we both recognized: waiting for the “right words” before making a sound. Sometimes they do come in the waiting, but sometimes the waiting means a door closed on the chance to speak.
What strikes me today as I hear you articulating this roadblock is this little epiphany: when I’m looking for the “exact right words” it’s because I don’t (or can’t) trust the other person to be attentive with me, to be trying to listen between the lines. I don’t trust the other person to be wanting to hear and understand.
Another thought I love — “Perfect precision would have eliminated that journey. Crystal-clear language would have prevented that discovery. The productive confusion created by my imperfect word choice became the catalyst for insights that neither party could have reached alone.”
This concept has been something I’ve actively worked on in my teaching and mentoring relationships for the bulk of my career: the idea that understanding is achieved and created together as we bring our “rough drafts” of engagement into conversation with each other’s ideas.
Over the past several years, I’ve been noticing and actively calling attention to our expectations that we must have all the answers already. There’s an automatic defensiveness around not-knowing—even when not-knowing was to be expected—that I see everywhere, and it gets in the way of authentic engagement and of learning. I saw it, of course, in my own self first (or perhaps in my students first when they seemed to think I expected them to already know everything about the new subject we were diving into, and then had to look inside myself to find the mechanism of that automatic expectation). Now I see it everywhere.
In the best and most nourishing learning moments I’ve ever had the privilege to be part of (whether as leader or simply a participant), the thing that made them rich was the fact that each person brought a unique perspective to the table. Because no two people’s take on something is ever fully alike.
This is why I love the work I do with language 💕💕💕 Thanks for capturing it in this essay!
Once again, timing!
This bit here — “We fear saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing. We wait for perfect words to show up and end up offering no words at all.” — is exactly what came up on my end during a mentoring session I was leading yesterday.
I was modeling how to use journaling to identify roadblocks to accomplishing our goals. This exact issue came up as one of my roadblocks to reaching out to my US senators (one of my current goals).
As someone who knows the amazing power of “a word fitly spoken,” I yearn for those kinds of words in my own writing/communication. I also have enough experience as a teacher/communicator to know that sometimes we have to go ahead with the messier communication in order to work our way to understanding. But with someone who’s looking for the sound bite, the one-page of talking points, the hot take, someone who doesn’t have time for the messy bits first, I get stuck. Frozen here as we both recognized: waiting for the “right words” before making a sound. Sometimes they do come in the waiting, but sometimes the waiting means a door closed on the chance to speak.
What strikes me today as I hear you articulating this roadblock is this little epiphany: when I’m looking for the “exact right words” it’s because I don’t (or can’t) trust the other person to be attentive with me, to be trying to listen between the lines. I don’t trust the other person to be wanting to hear and understand.
Love this insight. Thank you for sharing!
Another thought I love — “Perfect precision would have eliminated that journey. Crystal-clear language would have prevented that discovery. The productive confusion created by my imperfect word choice became the catalyst for insights that neither party could have reached alone.”
This concept has been something I’ve actively worked on in my teaching and mentoring relationships for the bulk of my career: the idea that understanding is achieved and created together as we bring our “rough drafts” of engagement into conversation with each other’s ideas.
Over the past several years, I’ve been noticing and actively calling attention to our expectations that we must have all the answers already. There’s an automatic defensiveness around not-knowing—even when not-knowing was to be expected—that I see everywhere, and it gets in the way of authentic engagement and of learning. I saw it, of course, in my own self first (or perhaps in my students first when they seemed to think I expected them to already know everything about the new subject we were diving into, and then had to look inside myself to find the mechanism of that automatic expectation). Now I see it everywhere.
In the best and most nourishing learning moments I’ve ever had the privilege to be part of (whether as leader or simply a participant), the thing that made them rich was the fact that each person brought a unique perspective to the table. Because no two people’s take on something is ever fully alike.
This is why I love the work I do with language 💕💕💕 Thanks for capturing it in this essay!
I once dreamed of starting an Institute for the Study of Failure. You have hit on one of the values of such an institute: productive confusion!!
Thank you for digging deeper into the beginning of wisdom: confusion (I think it was Socrates that said something like that).
That would be such an interesting institute!