I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine who was upset about an incident between her and a person I did not know. She was notably upset about the whole ordeal so we discussed in detail. The words rang out in my ears “she did this to me… I would NEVER have done that to her” and it got me thinking.
Though my friend is upset, who is really at fault?
I believe the danger lies when we place our OWN unexpressed expectations upon someone else, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Surely if we have not verbalised our expectations to someone, how are they meant to know? And what grounds do we really have to be upset?
We can claim it is common sense or common decency but really when we judge others actions and words by the way we live our own lives, but we don’t communicate our expectations to other people about what we will and won’t tolerate, who do we really have to blame?
In a world that is now so “connected” we really are all so disconnected from each other and almost incapable of communicating with one another. It’s as if it’s ok to be upset or to take offence to something where we haven’t actually expressed any boundaries but just assumed the other person should just know?
Could we do ourselves a favour and instead being presumptuous we actually open our mouths (not text) and communicate our expectations and boundaries to the people in our world so misunderstandings and offences don’t end up ruining a good relationship?
Food for thought…
