Covering our limitations creates chaos

One Christmas, my grandmother and I went shopping in a large, bustling mall. It was loud and sounds felt doubly confusing because of the echo. We ran into one of her friends who greeted us with warm hugs and sad news. “Perhaps you did not get the news, but my mother passed away yesterday.”


My grandmother laughed. My grandmother’s hearing issues embarrassed her but she was stubbornly resistant to admitting she often could not hear accurately. Instead of fessing up, she covered her embarrassment with a big smile and hearty chuckle. This did not serve her well. It created awkward moments and even some hurt feelings. My grandmother’s problem was one of encoding. But accurate listening requires us to also decode. We have to decode what the speaker means.


Tomorrow we talk about the danger of decoding without humility.


CHALLENGE: Are there any issues that you are avoiding acknowledging as a problem? Are you stressed out but don’t want to bother anyone? Maybe your tendency to watch too much tv or sleep all the time is because you feel depressed, unwell, or anxious but since you do not admit that, your partner, family and friends may be receiving the wrong message that you are not interested in them. What is going on with you that you might need to share with others?