Category: communication

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Prejudice, Perspective, Pride and Presumptions – or: The Surface Only?

Image of a bridge and some weeds growing through the iron grill parapet, with a glass sphere reflecting the image upside down.
Image by WorldInMyEyes from Pixabay

“Perspective is Key.” – “Pride and Prejudice”: The latter is a novel by Jane Austen, one of her most famous ones. Jane Austen was a lady and writer and wrote about what she knew best: The life of the landed gentry in early 19th century England.

The title encompasses a lot of what gets in the way of people knowing each other well, especially in formal surroundings, these days most often business.

The prejudice we grow up with or develop over time. A blunt example: People wearing black beanies are at least doubtful in character, perhaps some sort of outlaw – or even criminals…

Or: People laughing may be lacking in respect and subordination in a business context…

Or: People wearing comfortable shoes and clothing (especially women) are of a certain orientation in their private life…

Or: Italians are always passionate and easy to smile and make jokes, and like celebrating and joyful activities… whereas people in North European countries tend to be gruff and a little lacking in social graces…

Really?

Try meeting an Italian at night on a lonely road… or on the other hand North Europeans when you ask them for help – or around a fire on the beach with a guitar…

Stereotypes are often a misstatement of possibilities that have been generalized – too often, too long.

And they also can easily be abused to stamp a group or an individual with the sign of a brand, sort of: Difficult, avoid…

When in actual fact it’s the misogyny, or hatred of the other (better…??) principle, the person that might be considered a threat to ones position – or the simple envy of a (perceived) advantage over ones own existence.

Images and perspective are key, in so many respects.

That’s why checking your sources carefully can be crucial, not to say of the essence.

So much suffering, pain and useless effort are delivered and spent in regard to prejudice.

My father used to put it jokingly, and in plain irony:
“Those are the types that will not have their prejudices spoilt by fact.”

The way out of such pits of misery and their pitfalls? Since, misery is the real result of such thoughts and sometimes ensuing deeds:

    • Find out about your own true self, all the good things and skills you own. The self-esteem.
    • Try and change perspectives on your life and your peers now and again, even if for fun only and see what can happen, at times…

There’s joy and the good, lighthearted laughter in that.

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Change – Humans – Time or: The Very Human Element

image of a globe in the night sky, with a large group of people on ground in shadow standing in front of it
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Change is a big word in business sometimes. I believe that we may feel tempted to expect fast and smooth changes in people every day, led by ideas in some pamphlets or flyers or even books or consultants… that say:
“If you do X and Y you will get there in no time.“

The thing is:
People don’t change fast or by a click. And that has its reasons too: When you are grown up you have seen parts of life even when still young. The more mature you grow the more you know that people need time.
That changes grow – a little like fruit on a tree: That takes at least months.
And animals, when you watch them you will find that they grow up and mature in some years.

Now, people?
We have complex brains – so they tell us (- ‿◦ ) and that means also that we start thinking about consequences at some point. The more the merrier… and additionally the history of mankind did prove that embracing the unknown, the new, the strange, could lead to dangers, even loss of your live.

So, what happened?
In essence people are ‘conservative’, in the true sense of the word:
They preserve the things that did prove reliable at least, and good in the past. Because that makes you feel safe. Secure. And more relaxed.

If change needs to happen in business it’s a good thing to calculate with that ‘staying power’ humans have.

A power that can be endearing and very necessary. And that can be overcome by patience, perseverance – and with very good reason(s).

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War – Power – Power-play – Power-balance or: No Time for Denying the Obvious

Image of a cloud in the sky at dusk, with sunlight behind it.
Image by lmaresz from Pixabay

War is no destiny. War is not dealt us by any type of gods to check our resilience or our heroism.
War is man-made by those that crave power, want to protect it or even more so,  protect the money involved.

Conflicts are a natural part of human life. Wars are not.

The present power blocks we see are not really new. New is the leader-of-state-type the US have engaged to do their dirty work:
Someone who likes it, who already is starting to prepare his ultimate leadership as dictator, king or emperor and someone also, who uses threats and fear as means to ‘make deals’. He has publicly admitted, nay, praised himself that: A ‘deal-maker’.

At present the most urgent need many see and have is ensuring peace.

To deny the obvious, namely that the maps we can see make Ukraine an encroachment onto Russian territory, if they should join the NATO, is childish.

Image of NATO member states and installations around East of Europe, including Ukraine and its border with Russia.
Image screenshot of NATO’s own website, all options checked. Taken at: 23-11-2025_05-50-47 local time (UTC+1)

Ukraine is a country with people, a history and pride.
But they also are people who want to live, to have peace, to stop seeing their cities and villages go up in flames. Bury their dead and weep each and every day over their lost loved ones.

Even more so, Palestine and the Palestinians, same way the majority of Israeli people do!

The majority of Israelis publicly declares even on Social Media such as LinkedIn their lack of support for the politics Netanyahu has applied from the start:

He was known as so-called hardliner from day one.
He had made the situation for Palestinians impossible for them by forcefully moving Israeli settlers there. Gaza-strip and the West Bank had been assigned to Palestinians to live in peace. To this day the official acknowledgement of Palestine as a state is not complete.

Additionally, it is recorded fact that his support in parliament and from voters was waning. So he started a war.

Attacking again under any pretext? Shame on him.

Peace needs to be negotiated, when we want to stop wars. Sometimes that can take time. But to deny the obvious or to refuse to negotiate properly is a sign of ulterior motives.

War needs to stop.

This is the simple truth:
Whatever your colour, creed or conviction, you are not supposed to either kill, torture or bother other people. Period.

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Life: Past, Present and Future or: ‘Stocktaking’

young man in home office looking thoughtfully at his laptop screen
Image free license courtesy freepik.com

In life and in families things often become difficult. Involved.
When times are good, it seems easy to be graceful and acknowledging. Giving. When times are hard and have been for some time, perspectives may change.

‘Stocktaking’ is the term for doing a check on goods in a storage room or business, originally. But it is often applied to the recall, the active review on memories; or of course, the present times: What seems hard to endure. What seems especially unjust or unfair in a lifetime, compared.

Probably sometimes that little word ‘compared’ is crucial:
Comparing myself and my lot to others.

Mostly when we feel unjustly dealt with, we compare ourselves, our hardships, to people who seem well off. Happy. Relaxed. Always in possession of what seems to make life easy, nice and ‘cool’.

What we tend to omit is the other view: Compare our lot with so many others that are off much worse.

It’s not always helpful right at first, when we may feel overwhelmed by taking care of relations. Having children. Taking care of sick people. Of the terminally ill.

And it is also crucial to find ways of relieve in such times!

It’s been proven that people in caring professions such as medical doctors, nurses and people in health care are particularly apt to suffer from burnout.

In families caring for the sick and elderly too can be underestimated, or having children. Too often an ideal of an angelic figure roams the fairy stories and concepts of motherhood, especially, which is far from reality.

Some Hollywood movies as well as some kinds of TV-serials or advertisements can strongly suggest it, though.

Mothers and other people are just human beings. They can make mistakes. They can feel overwhelmed.

They can feel underestimated. They can feel tired to their bones.

I have seen people in other cultures who still understood through generations of large families with more than 8 or 10 children and grandchildren in each thread that what humans are, is not perfect.
That life can deal you hard ‘decks’, without any responsibility or fault of your own.

That’s what we need to understand, to further mutual understanding:

    • Very often we are not at fault, when things go wrong.
    • We cannot possibly be perfect, because that’s not human.
    • When the chips are down, we may need help.
      • To ask for help is good. We may have to learn that, again.
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“One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer” – Or: How To Judge – or Not…?

A table in a laboratory sowing several tubes, small glass bottles and testing equipment for chemical substances.
Image free via freepik.com (no AI involved)

In science you make a rule from thousands of occurrences of the same phenomenon… if it is the same. There are strict rules for creating new or even corrected rules in science. The same is true for the law, legislation and courts of law: In order to be sure of what you do or say, you have to be very careful of your facts, and your witnesses, if any.

That’s why in everyday life you meet so many people who judge often based on – almost nothing: One day, one situation, one occurrence, even a chance correlation of two events – and ‘lo and behold’ they make up a story about people, a place – or they pass judgement.

It’s easy that way: Passing judgement, on others. It makes you feel fine(r) about yourself. And you can stop worrying about your own shortcomings…

Well, it depends, of course. Because not everybody is the same.

Even the bible, a book full of wisdom, if you know how to read it, has that, already, Matthew, 7, 3:

“3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (King James Version)

“3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (New International Version)

There’s the idea that two events occurring at the same time can be made into a story… such as a stork flying across the sky while a baby is born… Makes it – what?

“Storks bring babies…?”

Are you quite sure…?

Drawing of a smiling stork flying past carrying a baby inside a folded cloth in his beak.
Image free via Ecosia filtered search, Creative commons
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Communication and Culture: Writing, Talking, Listening… – Tolerance can be Key

Image of two women and a man from different cultures, sitting in a public place and friendly talking and listening to each other
Image by Grand Ath Thariq Kusmara Gustav from Pixabay

“You just don’t understand!” – That’s the title of a book by a famous social sciences researcher. She writes in a manner everyone can understand about the difficulties that can arise when men and women talk to each other. It’s focused on the US-American, that is, to some extend Western society and culture.

Most of us know how different and thus difficult to understand the approaches and outlook on life can be between the sexes.
Even more so, when there are similar ideas around, living and working together, where expectations are yet different in detail.

The outlook, the perspective on life, and other people can be a crucial key to understanding each other.

There are people with a quiet and withdrawn everyday behaviour. Who think for themselves, take longer to finally speak about their thoughts; or exchange ideas.

Others rather like to talk soon to someone of like mind.

‘Like mind’: Wonderful words, in some ways.

The person who understands us without any drama or long discussions. Makes us feel welcome and at ease. Accepted. Because we understand each other easily, due to similar outlooks.
Like minds.

There is yet another very interesting and yet basic difference in communication between so called high-context and low-context cultures:

    • “High-context” means not so much a measure of better quality – it means that in order to properly understand what is said you have to know body language.
      The non-verbal messages that come with the words, the talk.
    • “Low-context” too, is not a measure of lower quality – it means that almost exclusively words are regarded as the whole ‘message’ of the speaker.  Facial expression or gestures are almost not taken into account. At least, not knowingly.

I have seen both: People who register every tone of voice or the lifting of an eyebrow in order to ‘decode’ the message.
And those who don’t. At all.

I also know how easily we all are mistaken in judging others: The famous story of the man with the hammer by Paul Watzlawick, a leading figure in communication studies, in his even more famous book: “The situation is hopeless but not serious” is ample proof of that way we all have at times to interpret others – willy nilly:

The man decides he needs to lend a hammer from his neighbour, thinks a while, remembers all kinds of apparent recent snides and strange looks, concluding a grudge, the other is harbouring against him – when he eventually reaches the door of the neighbour’s house, rings and the neighbour opens, screams to his face:
“You can well keep your hammer to yourself!”

Things can become more subtle than that, though: When we live in a close-knit community with some strict ideas on how to behave – it can happen that we become intolerant towards others.

A wonderful concept that can help a lot to more peace and peaceful coexistence:
“Tolerance”: “willingness to accept behaviour and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them” (Cambridge Dict., online version)

What can make tolerance so difficult is the fact that we so often are raised with the silent premise of: “if you are not for you are against me” – The unspoken effect inside being even a (temporarily) shaky self-confidence:
We look for someone to confirm our uneasiness, or our hurt feelings. To feel we are not wrong. But right, in feeling insulted or even hurt.

This ‘comes with the territory’: Many of us get a basic idea of ‘right and wrong’, sometimes strict parents or elders raising us with those ideas. And no explanations of – or more subtle views on – the how and the why.

Or the even less-easy-to-grab concept of being right – and the other person being right too… in their view of a situation.

That we will not lose a point or our position, our dignity, ‘face’, when we acknowledge the other’s perspective to be understandable.

But, that is the starting point of more peace and understanding:

Practicing tolerance.

Starting to learn about perspectives and (apart from legal or ethical considerations) about diversity of beliefs, outlooks – points of view.

And still retain our sense of self-esteem.

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Pick Your Battles – Or: Focus on Strength

Image of woman on mountain top before sunrise
(Image licensed via Adobe CC)

I have posted about wars. This is about the smaller ones in everyday life. We can make an issue out of every little thing. Sometimes, people will misunderstand it if we don’t. I had to fight a lot in the course of my life. I learned one thing for sure:

Many things can become big, even huge in the eyes of the world ‒ or our own ‒ if we make them that. Fighting is proven to ‘take it out of you’: You can become angry, even furious once you have chosen the issue. You start an argument, perhaps. Things even may escalate into a full-blown conflict that rages for years.

And for what, really? So often we will come to realize that a lot of things are not worth the energy, because:

Fighting saps one’s strength.

I am not talking about becoming angry ‒ and letting off steam. That’s important in a healthy way and done safely in order to not hurt others.
But fighting?

Fighting takes it out of you, the effects can become really dangerous to our system. Because, the way we deal with anger or even frustration is something we can learn ‒ and manage. So much in life depends on how we look at it. Strong emotions are part of our mindset ‒ that is also: part of how we evaluate what happens to us.

The first flush of anger may be involuntary ‒ but after that, it’s a choice. To save health and nerves and keep frustration at bay.

Because, also, so often looking back, we may regret unnecessary fights, especially with people we like or love.

That’s why I make it a point in my life ‒ and a plea here for all who are wondering: Pick your battles. The next one may be really worth it.

 

Author’s Note:
I write about such things because I learned early in life how easily we all tend to make our life difficult or even hurt the other’s feelings without meaning to. Misunderstandings too, are easy.  I have a strong background in workplace psychology, among many other fields of interest, be that history, philosophy ‒ or politics. I also have come across many misjudgements in life ‒ in private life or in business.
Enlightenment is a philosophical approach and subject ‒ to me it is essential to understand ‒ and make understood.

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The View on Things and People — Perspective or Judgement?

Photo of lighted glowworms in a forest clearing at night
Image by Yuri from Pixabay — Glowworms at night

Perspective is another word for a view on things — or the world. Our view on the world can be mutli-faceted — or rather singular.
It depends on how we grow up, what we see and learn – and how we learn to deal with people and things — and how to judge them.

What now? ‘Judge’?
I am just thinking here, you might say.

Of course, in a broader sense, judging is what we do when we determine our view on something, or somebody.
In many cases what we see and hear is what we go by.

But blind people for example will tell you that going by your visual impression alone can easily lead to mistakes.
Equally, deaf-mute people will tell you that ‘going by’ the sounds or words spoken will easily lead to mistaken impressions.

But if that’s so easy to mistake what would you ‘go by’ then?

It needs an open mind and it needs patience. Neither people nor things can be judged quickly — although many people tend to do that — and a good understanding comes with time — and knowledge.

A very popular example is the reported reaction of a group of deaf-mutes watching the former US president Clinton when he spoke on his relations to the young lady that eventually caused his resignment from office: They smirked and laughed out loud until asked what was going on? And they answered: “But he is lying, it’s so obvious…”

Whatever the reason or the occasion, if we want to make this world a better place we would want to check our view — our judgement — of people as well as situations carefully.

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The Apple and the Pear: Words – and Colours – Life’s Varieties

Image of fresh apples and pears looking almost the same
Original image by wirestock on Freepik, resized

“Dark yellow? Orange?” Words matter. Images in the mind are directly connected with them. That makes them so powerful. And so difficult to control:

Because that’s what can happen: People talk apparently about the same thing but it is only partly the same – as in ‘dark yellow’ or ‘orange’. You cannot always know what others understand of your words, your speech, or your message.

Equally difficult can be to really know what others might mean, even though you seem to be using the same words. Why that happens? Because we all grow up and make experiences in certain cultures and surroundings.

That way the associations, the images, that crop up in our individual minds can be different – even if slightly.

At times they can make understanding each other challenging, at least.

Of course, there’s the situation that people are well-meaning but make more of their own skills or their expertise than is actually true. And others even expect it from them.  In interviews for job applications, for example.

When you then meet the exception from the rule, it can make it even more challenging and also interesting: To expect someone to be ‘telling tall tales’ and then find out that they hadn’t…

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“The Silent Majority” – The 100-People-Rule

Image of many figures like pieces in the blue dark, one of them in red and highlighted standing out.
(Image licensed freepik.com)

In former times it seemed to be a matter of course to talk about the ‘silent majority’. And it also seemed to be debatable: Did it exist?

These days we know: It does!

The statistics you get from business departments such as support, online and offline, confirm:

For any person letting a company, an organization, or platform know about their issues or problems or worries, there are around 100 silent ones who do not speak up. Some are too lazy. Some are too busy. Some are just too self-conscious, don’t dare to draw attention to themselves.

Whatever the reasons may be: I also know from actual experience how often people in everyday life underestimate the universal facts of human life:

Emotions, feelings, worries and also joy so often are felt very similarly. Yet, very often also people don’t know about that and therefore feel disconnected.

Sharing helps: Experience, emotions, and thoughts. And my blog is one place where I like to share for exactly that reason. To help and to spread perhaps a (little) light of understanding.

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