Some adjectives make me unhappy
On this day, I realize lots of feedbacks when looking back.
Hello all guys…
This blog is about few of myself as a class of Psychology 101.
In a time of childhood, I am a one of “shortest” student in the class. Also the first in a line when singing the national anthem. That made me shy.
However I was the best in studying in the class.
Grew up then, I was told that I lacked the communication skills (been improving nowadays.)
However I am proud of being a part of the laboratory so that I skilled programming and won some competitions. Nice!
After undergraduated, Going to work. Found many feedbacks such as “not good in service” “work too slow” and “not understand the customers”, sometimes got some appearance abuses.
However I had have the customers’ compliments like “good works”, “fun to talk with”, and “clear answers for their inquiries”.
On this day, I realize lots of feedbacks when looking back. “good”, “well”, “bad”, “short”, “slow”, “terrible”, and etc.
Most of those feedback are adjectives, are they? They magnify me how I am in their eyes. I would say the adjectives are for comparing with the others, for example:
- Good in studying “compared with all students in a class”
- Slow working “compared with colleagues”
- Fluent speaking “compared with those two friends”
- etc.
Furthermore, we often use the adjectives without referring the comparative objects and let the audiences imagine depend on their backgrounds:
- “Bad at studying”, as an asian who was taught to be smartest in a class, this can make us depressed.
- “Ugly” oh, this word is so rude in the way of body-shaming.
- “Idiot” this is extremely impolite. It definitely suppresses their self-esteem.
Those words called “Labeling”. The speakers label or judge the listeners based on the speakers’ perspectives upon the listeners. The problem is the perspectives are very subjective and they probably hurt listeners way worst than it could be.
This situation of the world is the labeling causing hate speeches from the negative adjectives. It hurts and mentally breaks listeners.
How can we avoid this? We can use the facts e.g. “Got grade 3.00 out of 4.00”, “Not-finished works by 2 PM”, or “1 incorrect topic in the presentation”. Additionally, we describe more about solutions of the mistakes.
Our communication that involves facts can improve the understanding of both speakers and listeners to be on the same page. It also decreases an unintentional hatred and depression especially to high-sensitive person.
This is my opinion about what we should say to others. As a speaker, facts would be better to explain someone instead of those negative adjectives, right?
In the other hand, as a listener, we consider ignoring the negative them if we see it’s not useful and achieve the communication goal by the bright side in the conversation, don’t we?