Actions speak louder than words (The radio)

T

hey say actions speak louder than words. Which I’ve always found to be an interesting phrase. Do we always listen to the loudest person in the room? or just because it is the loudest, should we really listen to it? I’ve often found myself trying to explain my point of view to people and have found the following analogy to be a good example.

Imagine something that is incredibly important to you. (For this example lets imagine someone important to you, gave you a radio; and it is the last thing you ever received from them)

You’re sitting there one day listening to your radio. You’re sitting there minding your own business remembering all the good times, the happy memories associated with the radio, and just down right enjoying the beautiful day. Out of no where someone comes along and breaks your radio right in front of you.

Someone coming in and breaking your favorite radio right in front of you could be incredibly traumatic and I could imagine there could be a lot of emotions stirring. You could even be thinking an eye for an eye, and want to take something from them. I will not dispute that the act of seeing someone break something important in front of you is not a powerful moment. However do we just take that at face value? do we yell and scream at the person for breaking something that was so important to you? or…

What if they broke the item to protect you from something? what if they did it because you broke something of theirs? what if they really just don’t like you and wanted to cause you pain?

There are a thousand different reasons why someone might do something, and we can sit there and think of all the possible reasons why someone might have done something. The only way to truly know however is the ask the person themselves. So the question is, do you ask?

(Yes, I realise this can sometimes be a monumental ask and could be the hardest thing you ever do)

The Logic
There is one fundamental reason that I would like to think that we should ask this question and that is to give someone the benefit of the doubt. If someone has broken something say to protect me, I’m going to feel silly getting angry and yelling at them; because they thought they were helping. If someone broke it because I broke something of theirs, I’m going to be annoyed that they broke it; but this opens us up to further conversation. Am I aware I broke something of theirs? did they assume I broke something of theirs? did something actually get broke?

You are now strengthening the relationship with this person, by giving them the time to explain and by taking the time to understand them.

It will always be important to find out why someone has done what they have done, because an action can have many different reasons and if you interpret the action incorrectly you can damage or ruin a relationship that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.