Today’s Drifting Thoughts: When Communication Is Both The Barrier And Door Towards Understanding

Originally posted as a comment, but I believe it’s worth mentioning here:

I’m not entirely sure whether I interpreted “overcritical” correctly (but assuming that comes from your more direct style of communication you had with people either when people pour their problems out to you, or that you can’t agree on one’s action/decision about something)

If I’m correct at my definition, I personally perceive that it’s not much of a big problem actually, as you said that it’s only miscommunication that causes it. It will happen in one way or the other.

Coming back, basically being direct in your communication doesn’t make you a less nuturing or perfect friend. Well… or probably “being direct” doesn’t make your friends misunderstood you, but I guess you get my drift here. Sometimes your decision towards your communication are often govern by the issues that you had on hand now (in this case, the issue of other people’s problem). I do agree that emphathetic is always good in most cases like this, but in some situations emphatising might not be the best solution to your friend, either they like it or not.

Personally I have my own fair share of being call of being a “overly critical” friend, and that hurts me everytime I heard that comment. But I have to be fully aware that I can’t be a shelter for emphathy and/or sympathy all the time, as I believe that being a true friend is to be able to make the best decision and do whatever necessary in order to help their situation, even if that means that I have to hurt them and/or myself in some occassions. Whether they would take my advice or appreciate my help is none of my concern, what I know is that it is the my friend who can only make the ultimate decision for themselves, and I’ll give them my fullest support in whatever they decide.

What I’m trying to imply here is not to refute the importance of good communication in helping/nuturing a friend (i.e. the thing about taking care of other people’s feelings, love and compassion), but to let you know that being nuturing comes in different forms. Taking a quote from Fruitsbasket, I really agree to Touru’s mother when she said (if I’m not mistaken) “To believe in the kindness of others is the hardest thing to do… A person’s kindness might come in different shape and sizes, it can be round, it can also be sharp.” Therefore I do believe that communication plays an important role in making sure that the misunderstanding can be minimized over time.

Well… that’s basically what I feel about it. And probably I’m being critical to some extent, but that’s what I believe that might help you :).