Miscommunication leads to Misunderstanding

In his book, The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm poses the practice of the art of loving requires one to not have a narcissistic orientation, but instead, the practice of the art of loving “…requires the development of humility, objectivity and reason” (111). For Fromm love is more than just a feeling; it requires one to be engaged and actively focused in our relationships with the people we know, people we meet, and with the strangers on the streets. He sees the practice of the art of loving as the Golden Rule, “…to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you” (120). Although practicing the art of loving can be a challenge if one has never learned to be objective, it is, however, important for one to practice objectivity because it allows one to live through life with an open, patient, and humble mind which helps one become a better person.

When I was growing up, it was far easier to avoid a misunderstanding with a friend than to try to fix the problem because it required more work and some emotional talk about how I felt. I was young and had not learned yet that objectivity is a valuable tool to have when caught in a miscommunication with friends. However, as time passed and I began to get older, I realized that I wanted to explain myself when I made a mistake or I did not articulate a fact effectively to a friend, which led to a misunderstanding because of my failure to express myself. Eventually with practice I manage to get the hang of how objectivity worked through trail and error. Once my friends started to hang around after I apologized, I realized being objective paid off. I began to notice this “give-and-take” interaction between the people I could be objective with and their ability to be objective with me.

One experience that stands out where I had to practice objectivity to salvage a friendship happened about two years ago. In my first year at the College of Marin, I met a wonderful interior designer who hired me as her personal assistant. Our relationship as employee and employer eventually blossomed into a friendship. However, our friendship was damaged for a little over a year before we managed to make amends with each other. My incompetence to communicate my working schedule with hers damaged our business and personal relationships. I had failed to let her know that I had received a summons for jury duty the week I started working with her. I failed to mention that there was a possibility that I would be called in to serve on a jury.

We had been working on a project together for about a week, making posters and whatnot, when I had to call her to leave her a message (the day before the projects were due) stating that I had jury duty the next morning. She called me immediately and expressed her disappointment and frustration with me. In my defense, I told her that I did not know I was going to be called in for jury duty and that I had gone the whole week calling in for jury duty that I figured on my last day of jury duty, which was on a Friday, I was not going to be summons. I had, for the record, never been summons for jury duty, so I had no idea how jury selection worked.

In the end, I managed to understand how frustrating and difficult it had to have been for her to manage all the workload on her own. I know I failed to be responsible in communicating my potential inability to work for her that week. She was very upset with me and even threatened to not pay me. But I kept my cool and gave her time to cool off. I apologized a handful of times to her and at first she was not receptive, but then after time had gone by, she slowly but surely came around and eventually paid me and warmed up to me again. I have to say that over the summer we finally started to hang out again…few!