A story is told of a husband and wife sitting at a table at the husband’s high school reunion. He keeps staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.
Perspective. We all see things differently. Even husbands and wives. Come to think of it . . . especially husbands and wives!
“A candy store sold its exotic chocolates only by the pound. In the store was one particular salesclerk who always had customers lined up waiting while other salesclerks stood around with nothing to do. The owner of the store noticed how the customers flocked to her and finally asked for her secret. ‘It’s easy’, she said. ‘The other girls scoop up more than a pound of candy and then start taking away. I always scoop up less than a pound and then add to it. The customers feel that I’m looking out for them and getting them their money’s worth.'”
“If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen? Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating.”
“A few years ago I was standing in a airport ticket line. In front of me were two children fighting over an ice cream cone. In front of them was a woman in a mink coat. I could see this was an accident waiting to happen. Should I interfere? I was still pondering this when I heard the girl tell the boy, ‘If you don’t stop, Charlie, you’ll get hairs from that lady’s coat on your cone.'”
When someone takes a long time, they are slow. When it’s me, I’m detail-oriented.When someone doesn’t do something, they’re lazy. When I don’t do it, I’m very busy.When the other person gets ahead in life, it’s because they are lucky or getting the breaks. When I manage to get ahead, it’s a reward for all of my hard work.